


The Things I Lost

by VeteranKlaus



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Depression, Divorce, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, F/M, Financial Struggles, Fluff, French Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin), German Erwin, Homeless Levi, Homelessness, Illness, M/M, Modern AU, Possible smut, Poverty, Prostitution, Smoking, Smut, Swearing, hunger, sad levi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-14 14:24:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 51,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16914549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeteranKlaus/pseuds/VeteranKlaus
Summary: His home is a tipped over dumpster, and his bed is the cardboard inside.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Just another slow fic revolving around Levi, because of course. I hope you enjoy it!

Nobody gives him a second glance, and he’s long since stopped trying to get many people’s attention. Occasionally, he would put himself out there; go up to someone, ask for spare change, etcetera, but today is not one of those days. The cold and growing hunger and exhaustion has sapped all the motivation from him, and so he resigns himself to sitting just in an alley, his head against a wall, cardboard under him, and a cup one-eighth full of pennies in front of him. His hood is pulled up over his head and slightly blocks the headlights and streetlights from his tired eyes.

When footsteps get too close to him, suspiciously close, he’ll peek up from his hood and his hair, just in case, but it’s never someone giving him a second of their time.

Never.

Levi, with a sigh, takes his cup and turns his back to the world as if it hadn’t already done that to him, and he pours the pennies out and begins to count them.

Six dollars and seventy-two cents. If he wanted to get fancy and festive, he could afford one of those Christmas latte’s or hot chocolates in any coffee shop, but that would be the biggest waste of his money. But god, he wanted something warm in his stomach, rather than more cold water and tasteless food.

Levi puts the money in his coat pocket and zips it up, as if someone would care to try and mug him for all the six dollars to his name.

He leaves the plastic cup there while he heaves himself to his feet, his cold, weak limbs moaning in pathetic protest. He has to balance himself against the dirty brick wall next to him for a moment before he can walk out steadily. Some people give him odd looks when he leaves the entrance of the alley, but that’s okay. He’d give himself weird looks too.

It’s December and it’s absolutely freezing – his clothes do nothing to help from the cold, and his shoes do nothing for his feet, either.

It’s been seven months since he got a divorce, six months since he got fired, and around four months or so since he’d been evicted with nowhere to go. He’d shoved all his stuff into a bag which he carried everywhere, and those, along with the change from people on the street, were all he had to his name. The money he had brought with him at the beginning had dwindled to virtually nothing, being spent on travel fees, cleaning ends with bills, loans, fees, etcetera, along with the necessities of food, water, occasional shelter when the weather got too bad.  He’d also picked up smoking during his divorce and was in no good place to stop it now, and that was costly. Then, of course, the laundromat and the gym (the gym was the cheapest place to have a shower, and he enjoyed a workout while he was there – it gave him something to do other than get sucked into the daily depression he faced.)

It’s getting dark – it gets dark so early now that it’s winter – but the streets are still bustling – up until midnight, they usually are – and he melts into the moving crowds on the street, in amongst the Christmas shoppers, the lovesick couples, the tourists, the rowdy teenagers.

School let out a couple of hours ago, so the streets and the shopping centre he ducks into are still full of them in packs, gaggles of girls running from _Primark_ to _Topshop_ to _Urban Outfitters_ quickly, all with a _Starbucks_ in hand, gushing about Christmas presents and school. None paid any attention to him, of course, other than perhaps a sorry and a laugh when they almost bumped into him.

Levi wraps his arms around his torso tighter and hurries his legs on until he reaches the cheap grocery store in the shopping centre.

Six dollars and seventy-two cents.

He ends up buying a bread roll and going into a coffee shop nearby. His hands were still shaking and he could still feel the frost coating his bones. He sits in the corner of the place, slouched and shoulders hunched, clutching the tea and breathing in the steam it gives off.

He has ninety-seven cents to his name.

He nurses his tea slowly, spending as much time inside the warm, heated, comfortable coffee shop as he can possibly drag out, but he has nothing to do and is picking hesitantly at his plain roll. He’s been studying the lines in the wooden table in front of him intently for god knows how long, and when the chair opposite him scrapes suddenly across the floor, he almost drops his tea with how harsh he jumps.

It’s a blonde man, standing with one hand on the half-pulled out chair and a sheepish smile. He has a suit jacket over one arm, that same hand holding a briefcase.

“Sorry,” he says, “I thought you saw me. Can I borrow this seat?” He asks, and Levi’s mouth works silently for a moment before he lazily gestures with one hand.

“Go for it,” he replies, and the blonde smiles gratefully, nods his thanks, and takes the chair to the table next to him where there are a few people sitting. A brunette with thick glasses slaps the blonde mans shoulder and gives a loud, shrill laugh that grates Levi’s ears.

He returns his attention to his cooling tea, but occasionally looks up again at the blonde man. He doesn’t look back at him.

When he’s drained his tea and long outstayed his welcome in the shop, he drags himself to his feet and returns the empty cup of tea, and leaves. There’s still plenty of people in the shopping centre with hands full of shopping bags and gift bags, but the crowds are thinning out, people leaving before it can really get too late. On his way out, a teenager asks him to buy him and his group of friends a packet of cigarettes and a bottle of vodka. He keeps walking.

He still has half a roll left, a still fairly empty stomach, and a new amount of regret and self-loathing from spending so much money on one drink, but he feels warmer, even if it’s only for a short amount of time. He pulls the hood of his jacket up and zips it back up as he heads outside. The cold hits him and he pulls out his pack of cigarettes and his lighter, and shields the cigarette from the wind with his hand as he lights it and takes a long drag of it, feels it claw into his lungs and the tension in his wiry muscles are pushed out in a cloud of cancerous smoke.

It’s cold outside, badly so, but it’s not raining or snowing, and he can hide from the wind in certain places, so it’s not too bad tonight. He’s slept out in worse since it began to get colder.

He finds what’s become his usual sleeping spot, accepted by the homeless ‘community’ around – there’s so much more to sleeping in an alley than he had first thought, because other homeless people claim their spots and that’s theirs. He doesn’t want to have to fight some addict to sleep behind a dumpster, either, or get in the middle of a local drug trading spot or a prostitutes’ field. Don’t interfere with them, and more often than not, they won’t interfere with you, either.

It’s untouched, the dumpster that’s been tipped on its’ side still with the lid closed and when he opens it, all the cardboard for insulation and the plastic from a bag poking out from the corner of a piece of cardboard. Levi crawls into it, pulls the thin blanket from his backpack and then set the backpack at the top end, and then falls back onto it, balancing his cigarette between his lips as he pulls the lid closed with a grunt, and fixes his blanket.

It’s cold, and he finishes his cigarette quickly, flicking it out in a small gap by the lid of the dumpster that is now his home, and then he curls up into a tightly ball, tucking all his limps under his blanket and pulls it up to his nose.

He listens to the cars driving by and the people walking around, the loud laughter from people and happy yells, and he tries not to think about the fact that he’s sleeping in a dumpster in a dirty alleyway – has been for months now – and tries not to think about other people. She’s probably living with her parents now, or a friends, or maybe she’s got her own apartment again. It’s been months, maybe she’s even moved on already and has found another man. He tries not to wonder if she thinks about him, but knowing her, she probably is. Or, at least, she probably has at least once. She was never a cruel woman, but they were cruel to each other at the end. He remembers when she would complain about thinks she had previously loved about him, remembers when she accused him of things he never would have done, for whatever reason.

He remembers when she went to sleep earlier to avoid him, when she made a point of keeping blankets on her side, of making breakfast like usual but only ever for herself, and when he began to sleep on the couch, and when she yelled at him for sleeping with other girls, for whoring himself out to other men at clubs after snorting a perfect white line. He hardly even drank alcohol, let alone do drugs, and had such a problem with intimacy he doubted he’d cheat even if he wanted to. He still doesn't understand why she thought that, but it's okay, because he's still alive and she's probably at a new home (he's not had one for a while, now) with someone she feels happy with (did she not feel happy with him anymore? Is that all it was?)

Levi fell asleep with shaking hands and a heavy heart.


	2. One

_He had never seen himself falling in love._

_Truly, he had never imagined wanting to settle down with someone, to look forwards to waking up and seeing them beside him every morning, hell, to even thinking about raising a family with them. He had never thought about any of that before he met her._

_She knew him better than anyone had, and they held each other up. They moved in together and she’d play with his hair until he fell asleep, and in the morning whoever woke up first would make breakfast. When they were both home from work, they’d cuddle on the couch with a movie on (he always let her pick the movie) and they’d order Chinese or some pizza and share it._

_They’d hardly fought, at all. Some silly arguments of course, but real, hurtful fights? Never. They’d been dating for almost four years, too, and he could tell she wanted something more. He did, too, but it terrified him._

_Nonetheless, he memorised her ring size from when he bought her one for her birthday once, and he went to a jewellers in the town. The woman in the shop listened as he rambled about how he wasn’t sure what ring he wanted for her but she liked silver and diamonds but nothing too flashy, and she helped him pick out the perfect ring for her and put it in a red velvet box. He shook with anxiety and nerves when he brought it home, and he spent the next two weeks planning when to actually do it._

_He ended up taking her ice skating. It was winter, and she loved ice skating even if she wasn’t good at it. There were Christmas lights around and festive music playing and the smell of cinnamon and hot chocolates in the air, and the lights from the Ferris wheel were colouring the ice, too._

_When she almost fell over, he helped her up , near the middle of the ring, and stayed on his knees. His heartbeat was louder than the music and laughter of the children around them, and she looked confused as to why he had taken her offered hand but hadn’t gotten up._

_He reached into his jacket, in the little inside pocket off it, and pulled out the little red velvety box, bit his lip, and watched her face as he opened it._

He wakes up shaking.

His fingertips burn from the cold and he curled into his blanket, desperately seeking any shred of warmth he could get. It isn’t much. His limbs don’t cooperate with him for a few moments as he tries to unfurl them, to turn onto his side and sit up, and they ache furiously at him for staying so still in the cold for hours, as if it is his fault.

It takes three tries to open his backpack and shove his blanket in it and, purely for the small warmth it gave off, he hurries to light a cigarette. He has the impulse to simply grab it by the burning end, but the cold hasn’t reached his brain enough to make him that stupid.

He kicks the lid of his dumpster up and falls out, his hands landing in a small puddle. Apparently, it had rained overnight.

He wiped his hands on his trousers with a grimace, and uses the frosty dumpster to pull himself to his feet. His knees shook.

The watch on his wrist – one of the few valuable things he still has – tells him that it is eight thirty-seven in the morning, and he tucks his pale hand back into his pocket and begins walking down the streets. Most people outside now were just people running to work or teenagers heading to school, slightly late, or some people out starting their day with a quick run or cycle. If he was one of those people, he’d probably be enjoying this morning.

There is a chill in the air but little wind and it isn’t still raining from overnight, the sky was clear and still stained with the colours the sunrise brought. If he was just another man on his way to work, or a teenager again trying to get to school before the bell, he would have enjoyed it. Bundled in a scarf and thick jacket and good shoes, the chill would have been refreshing, nice in his lungs and against his face.

But he isn’t one of those people. He has some jeans on and the same shirt he slept in, and wore the day before, and slept in before and wore that day as well, and a hoodie that needs to be washed and then a jacket which, at least, is somewhat good quality – it reaches just above his knees and is fluffy on the inside and rather thick, although it doesn’t have a hood, but a thick, warm collar that he often turns up. His shoes are worn, though, and hurt his feet to walk in for too long. He doesn’t have a scarf or gloves or a hat or thick, fluffy socks, but he’s, miraculously, not ill yet. Though, he can feel the way his throat itches and his lungs strain for breath under his ribs, and he knows that it’s only a matter of time – most likely days – until his immune system buckles under the strain he’s unwillingly putting himself through, and he’s walking around with a cough and a constant migraine. The throbbing behind his eyes has already begun.

But it’s fine. He can deal with it. He has to.

He finds his way to a bakery, stamps his cigarette outside the door, and steps inside with the number ninety-seven ringing in his ears.

It’s blessedly warm inside, though, and smells painfully like fresh-baked goods, but at least there’s a group of teenagers in, most likely buying food for school. There’s a few of them and it gives him time to linger, to rub his hands together and steal the warmth without looking suspicious.

“We’re going to be late!” One teenager cries, his blonde hair falling back from his face.

“Armin, relax, we have a study period first anyway,” a friend replies, his brown hair slicked back and green eyes calm and happy. The blonde, Armin, doesn’t look any more reassured by that, but he bites his lip and looks back to where a dark haired girl is paying for her food.

“We still have to sign in, though,” he utters, and the girl turns around with her stuff, then.

“And we’ll do it when we get there. It’s fine.” She repeats what the boy said, her tone calm and rather uncaring about whether they’re late or not. Her eyes flick over to Levi, and he looks away quickly, raising a hand to his mouth and coughs into, his ribs protesting the action.

The blonde kid scurries forwards to stammer out what he’s buying, and the girl and the other boy talk quietly together. Finally, the last kid goes up to buy his food, and Levi walks off to the side, pretending to look at the food in their display cases thoughtfully. He hurries to exit before the teenagers despite the fact that he’s still freezing and hungry, but he has the rest of that roll in his bag that he’ll eat later.

Levi tips his head down and scurries along the street, the warmth quickly being sapped out of him. He needs something to do, but he hasn’t got anything.

He’s handed in resumes for a few jobs – nothing much, serving or cleaning things – but he’s heard back from none of them. He’d kept his phone simply for that – so, he could actually apply for jobs, but it’s done nothing since he’s never heard back. He hasn’t got money for the gym – or the laundromat, which is becoming vital at this point. He does have another pair of clothes in his backpack, but since he never knows when he’ll be able to get to a laundromat next, he tries to not run through his clothes quickly.

He can’t go and order food or a drink anywhere, and most places won’t let him sit inside without buying something. He ducks into an alley quickly, pulling his backpack off and digging around in it until he pulls out his beloved can of deodorant. It cost him half of his money when he bought it, but it was a necessary purchase. He sprays himself down quickly, thankful it’s a strong-smelling brand, and then puts it back into his bag.

After that, he keeps walking.

It starts raining. At first, it’s just a light drizzle, but then it progresses until it’s bucketing down and he’s forever grateful that he was nearing a library when he was. He ducks into it quickly and wanders inside, revelling in the warmth and dryness it welcomes him with.

He wanders the bookcases, taking his jacket off and folding it over his arm.

It’s somewhat empty in the library, and with the time, he would only expect it to have a few people in – maybe some university students, or some elderly people wanting a quiet place to read, but not a lot of people.

The quiet is nice. People don’t look at him like he’s out of place, here, and he can stay here for a while – as long as he wants – and it’s warm and comfortable.

He takes a book on Norse mythology and finds an armchair in the corner with a radiator next to it, and he lays his wet coat on the radiator and settles into the book.

 

There’s a hand on his shoulder, shaking gently, and he jolts awake, jumping in the seat. The person retreats slightly, the woman (it’s not her, he tells himself, because for a moment he thinks he’s waking up in his apartment) smiling apologetically.

“Sorry, sir,” she says, “but people can’t sleep in here. Are you alright?” She asks politely, and Levi’s cheeks flush dark red. He closes the book on his lap and sits up, a cough tickling its way out of his lips.

“Sorry,” he murmurs, rubbing his cheek and blinking the sleep from his eyes.

The woman smiles softly, waving a hand. “It’s alright,” she says, and then she turns and walks back down the aisles of bookshelves and disappears off amongst them.

Levi runs a hand through his hair, letting out an embarrassed sigh. He had gotten so comfortable that he actually fell asleep here. He didn’t exactly regret it, though – it had passed some time, warmed him up, and given him some rest. Other than the continuous need to cough, he felt much better than he had before.

He put his book back – he’d only gotten a little way through it, but it was interesting, and he mentally noted to come back to it some day – put his coat on, and made his way out of the library.

Much to his displeasure, he was greeted with rain. Still furiously pouring from the sky, now accompanied by claps of loud thunder. People were running around with their hoods held tightly over their head and umbrellas straining against the occasional gust of wind.

Levi pulled his hood up and closed his jacket, burying his hands in its pockets. He hasn’t bother to look at the time, but he suspects the librarian knew he was asleep way before she woke him up. He’s grateful for that.

His stomach cramps, a painful reminder of the little he’s eaten and of the half-roll still in his bag. It’s ironic that, as he walks down the street in poor clothing hanging off his thin frame and an angry stomach, someone from a group handed him a leaflet, and when he looks at it, it mocks him.

_NEARLY 1 IN 128 PEOPLE IN THIS CITY ARE HOMELESS._

_EVERY NIGHT 4000 HOMELESS PEOPLE SLEEP ON THE STREETS._

_60% OF RESIDENTS CLAIM THEY DON’T HAVE ENOUGH MONEY TO COVER 3 MONTHS WORTH OF EXPENSES._

_20% OF RESIDENTS ARE LIVING BELOW THE POVERTY LINE._

_MORE THAN 11,000 SINGLE MEN ARE HOMELESS._

_NEARLY 4,000 SINGLE WOMEN ARE HOMELESS._

_DO YOUR PART._

_DONATE TO LOCAL FOODBANKS AND HOMELESS SHELTERS._

_SPARE SOME CHANGE TO THOSE WHO NEED IT._

It even lists the locations of some shelters and foodbanks, and phone numbers and websites to help out right at the bottom of the leaflet. It goes on to include common factors of homelessness and more statistics.

Levi throws the leaflet into the trash.

It snaps something inside of him.

He shakes the as he walks but not entirely from the cold, and until he ends up sitting in the entrance to an alleyway everything is a blur. He pulls his knees to his chest and runs his hands through his hair, twists his fingers in the raven locks, and tugs lightly.

He is homeless. He’s one of the 11,000 men – single men – sleeping on these streets, and that’s ignoring those in the shelters or programmes.

He’s the person other people look at and think _drug addict, lazy, bum, violent, gang activity, criminal._ He’s the person he walked past five months ago without a second thought and bad opinions of. He could be one out of nearly seven-hundred homeless people that die during the winter. He’s in the half that have toyed with the idea of ‘survival sex’, one of the many that abuse cigarettes, alcohol or drugs.

Levi is just another statistic of bad family life, of divorce, of homelessness, of substance use, of mental health, of poverty, he’s the faceless poster boy of endless statistics. He’s a story on websites campaigning to help the homeless just a little too late.

Levi drops his hands from his hair and isn’t surprised to find his face wet.

He gets up and walks back out into the rain, a cigarette between his lips.

_She said yes._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this part! Feel free to give me any feedback, I love reading it!


	3. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for the f-slur used once.

_They had a quiet wedding together. Went on a trip to France for a week, and Levi showed her around and they went to some fancy restaurant. When they got home, they began to settle down and just enjoyed their life together, and then they began to think about things more seriously. Long-term housing, their jobs, and eventually, she brought up the topic of children. He’d promptly had nightmares after that because if there was a man that would make a bad father, it was him._

_Somehow, she thought differently. Even managed to slowly warm him up to the idea – and it’s not that he never wanted children. He’d always, secretly, rather liked the idea. He just didn’t like the idea of him raising children – he didn’t exactly believe he was the best person to be doing that. But, with her? Maybe._

_They began fighting after around a year of being married._

_She had lost her job and Levi picked up extra hours to support them while she looked for another job. She was stressed, and so was he, but they made it work._

_She did little jobs around – dog walking, baby sitting, etcetera – but their hours clashed and Levi was only ever home for a few hours at night, and even his insomnia couldn’t keep him up after a full day of work. She was usually asleep already when he got there, and he left before she woke up. He hardly ever saw her awake._

_Their first real argument was when he found out she hadn’t been actively looking for work for a while now. He had been working full days, every day, with physically and emotionally draining jobs, and she hadn’t been bothering. No, instead, she’d been out with friends. The nights he hadn’t come home to her in bed, assuming she was working, she was at a nightclub, spending their decreased income on alcohol._

_She said it was none of his business, that wasn’t she allowed to have fun with her friends who, because she’d spent so much time with him nowadays, she’d all but been neglecting them? When he tried to touch her arm she slapped his hand away and grabbed her coat and house keys. When she came back that night, she reeked of alcohol, but Levi still held her hair back for her and got her some water._

_“Thanks, Shaun,” she muttered._

_Levi tried not to think about that._

The rain was insistent. There was still thunder, and he was sure he caught a flash of lightning every so often.

While everyone hurried to get indoors, Levi couldn’t bring himself to do. He can’t find any motivation to force his legs to hurry up, to get inside and save his already poor immune system.

His feet drag him down the streets. He’s semi-aware of everyone around him, and for a moment he wants to yell, to scream at them that he’s here, he’s alive, he’s a person just like them. It wouldn’t do anything but make him look crazy, though, so he keeps his mouth shut and when he trips up and his legs hardly hold him up, he decides he needs to stop.

He finds an alley between two buildings that are close enough that their roofs create a shelter from the rain. He sits under it and keeps his head low, ignores how light headed he feels in favour for pulling the roll from yesterday out of his bag and finishing it all. It sits in his stomach uncomfortably and makes him feel nauseous at eating it so quickly and suddenly.

He pulls his knees close to him and leans against the wall, watching people walk by with half-lidded eyes.

His thighs don’t touch. As much as he wants to make some rude joke about teenage white girls being envious of that, he doesn’t. He’s always been skinny, but since he’s been on the streets – hell, since he worked more than one job – he’d been steadily losing weight. If he tried, he thinks his fingers might meet around his upper arms. His lack of fat, mass at all, doesn’t help him when it’s this cold and the wall against him is cold and the floor beneath him is too, and so is the wind, and his clothes, and his own hands.

He once had a good physique, too. He liked to pride himself on keeping his health in top shape, and he’d go on morning runs, listen to his body and what it needed. He used to have toned arms and abs, and the kicks he could deliver to a punching bag were impressive. Now, he doubted he’d be able to effectively shove someone off of him.

Levi wraps his arms around himself, tucking his hands under his coat and under his armpits, and rests his head against the brick wall to his left.

Some days are better than others, and some days are like this.

He’s miserable. As much as he could try, he hardly ever gets himself out of these slumps when they happen, and it doesn’t help when his exhaustion reaches the marrow in his bones and he feels like his reactions, his own thought process, is dulled and slow.

He’s aware that he should do something – walk about inside, try and do some recycling that always gets him a small amount of money, something – but he can’t. What does it matter? He can be the whatever-out-of-seven-hundred homeless person to die during this winter.

Faintly, he feels he should feel bad about that, but he’ll do that later.

He stays like that for a while. Sitting there, in some kind of half-dissociated state, ignoring the people walking down the street and passing him by.

_“I love you,” Levi said, standing in their open kitchen. On the counter in front of him were the onslaught of bills he had to pay._

_She looked back at him, her coat half on and keys in her hand._

_She left._

He can hear the occasional clink as people drop money at his feet, and he feels like shit for the desperation that chokes him because he actually, really needs that.

His eyes slide down until he sees the mess of pennies by his feet. Nothing much, just spare change, but his heart leaps at it. He reaches out, briefly shocked at how pale his hand is, and scrapes the money up and into his pocket.

Occasionally, a stray drop of rain finds it way down and drips around him or lands on his shoulder. The sound of it is oddly soothing, although it, strangely, sounds like it’s also reaching him through a tunnel, or that he’s inside a large, empty hall and it’s echoing around him. It’s pleasant, though, and the sound washes over him and pushes tension out of his shoulders.

He could almost fall asleep. It’s nowhere as comfortable as inside the library, but the rain is relaxing and he’s surprisingly exhausted. He wouldn’t be surprised if all the exhaustion from the past few days was just now hitting him.

_“Why is it so cold, Levi?” She asked as soon as he walked in the door. His whole body ached from work and he had been eager to get home, to fall into a bed with her. His mood instantly changed with seeing how she’s already in a bad mood. She had a bottle of beer in her hand, too, and a plate of takeaway._

_“We spend too much money on heating and we can’t afford it right now,” he explained, hanging his coat up. “Nor can we afford all the takeaways.”_

_She rolled her eyes. “I’ve had a stressful day, geez. I’m allowed to treat myself,” she defended, and Levi deflated. He didn’t want this argument again._

_“You can, but we can’t afford it right now. Have you heard back from anyone yet?”_

_“Heard from who?”_

_“Your… Work. Tell me you’ve been looking for some work,” he pleaded._

_“You’ve been doing fine, haven’t you. I’m going to bed, alright. Try not to be too loud in the morning for once?”_

_Levi slept on the couch that night and got up early to clean the mess she’d left behind._

He slumps forwards, resting his forehead against his knees and lets eye flutter closed. He has everything with him, and he’s angled so his backpack is between him and the wall, and he’d surely feel if someone tried to take it. It’s rare he can fall asleep this quickly, so he might as well take advantage of it.

He falls asleep within seconds.

_“Honey, you’re drunk, please calm down.”_

_She spun around on him, stumbling as she did so. “Shut up, Levi,” she said, pointing a finger at him. The bottle almost fell from her hand._

_Levi took a step forwards, quietly, gently saying her name with his hands open casually._

_“Levi,” she repeated, and she almost looked disappointed. Almost… Sad. Sorry?_

_“Come on,” he coaxed gently, getting close enough to rest his hands on her shoulders. She was still wearing her heels from going out and she looked down at him with a mixed expression. “Let me get you to bed.”_

_She shoved his hands off her, but he reaches out when that almost makes her lose her balance. Luckily, she doesn’t, and he stops himself from touching her again._

_He hated alcohol. He hardly drank it for a good reason._

_She took another swig of whatever was in that bottle. “Don’t… Don’t touch me, asshole,” she slurred, and Levi dropped his hands, taking a step back._

_“Can you sit down? I’ll get you some water,” he offered meekly, and she turned her eyes to him again, a mix of angry, frustrated, and sad._

_“Do you not fucking get it, Levi?” She asked, shaking her head. She did sit down, though. “Don’t pretend I don’t know. You’re – you’re gone all day, and I know it’s with some sluts. You aren’t – you aren’t even there when I sleep or wake up, ‘cause you’re sleeping at your dealers house, or – or you’re at you’re fuckin’… Some other fags’ house.”_

_Levi reeled back, staring at her with wide eyes._

_“Why would you say that?” He breathed. He wasn’t sure if he should feel angry that she’d think he would do anything like that – go out doing drugs and/or cheat on her – but, she obviously did._

_She glared at him. “Because you never have time for me!” The bottle fell from her hand, smashing against the wooden floor with a grating crash. Levi grimaced subconsciously, and looked back at her._

_“I’m working – for us!” He defended._

_“I don’t – I don’t want to hear it, Levi,” she muttered, slouching on the couch. Levi didn’t know what to say, so he just stood there, stunned, as she fell into a drunk sleep._

_He cleaned the alcohol and put a blanket over her, and left before she woke up again, leaving a glass of water on the table with some paracetamol despite his hurt from before._

He was still slumped against the wall but now shaking uncontrollably. He peels open his eyes to see it was dark now, save for the headlights and streetlights that glare at him, but that could mean it was anywhere from four PM to six AM of the next day.

He could be sure that he couldn’t stop shaking and that everything felt way too slow – his breathing, everything around him, his pulse. His lips were chapped and when he began moving his mouth, swallowing dryly, they cracked slightly and he tasted a tiny bit of blood. His hand scrape against the brick wall beside him as he pulls himself to his feet, only to realise that he really wasn’t going to stand right now. A flare of panic shot through him, and at least that sped his heart rate and breathing up, finally made him feel _something_ today.

His fingers were a sore red and all his movements were poorly calculated and clumsy. It was still raining, but not as heavy now. He takes in a deep breath, and it makes him cough until his ribs hurt.

He gives up on trying to stand, urgency ebbing away slowly, and instead he curls in on himself, trying to shove his shaking hands into his pockets. The rest of his body is still shaking violently, and he curses himself for ever letting himself fall asleep out in the open in such horrible conditions.

It’s too late now, though, and he remembers when he didn’t care if he was one of the statistics of homeless deaths. Of course he had to go and jinx it, he thinks.

He wiggles his toes for a while, trying to work up feeling in them before he tries to stand up again. He does manage it, if only for a moment, because his knees are shaking so violently that he’s not sure if they’ll take his weight.

So, he sits back down again and holds himself tightly, his knees to his chest and forehead on his knees, and hopes that he can warm himself up enough to walk.

There’s his slow heartbeat thumping in his ears, and he realises he’s on his side. He doesn’t remember moving like that, but here he is. Someone, a blurry figure, is crouching beside him, and he flinches when their burning hand touches his cold, cold cheek.

“Sorry, sorry,” the man above him says, and he begins to clear. Blue eyes stare down at him with concern. “Are you okay? You were just on the floor and everyone was just walking past, but it’s so cold out here and you look like you’ve been outside for a while.”

It takes longer than it should for him to process all those words, and Levi’s dry tongue works silently for a moment. He swallows painfully.

“’m… ‘m fine,” he stammers, closing his eyes. A hand taps his cheek until he forces his eyes open.

The man above him, he realises, is the man from the coffee shop – however many days ago.

“Do you know what happened?” He asks with a frown, and Levi wonders why he’s concerned.

“I, ah… I think I passed out,” he says, though his words slur together slightly.

The man presses his lips together and nods, and then shifts to stand up. “Come on, you need to get inside,” he says softly, and Levi sets his head back on the cold floor. He knows that.

“Now,” the man persists. Ah, that would be better. He taps Levi’s cheek again when he doesn’t respond, and Levi sees he’s offering a hand for him.

He briefly considers his options. The man seems genuine about helping him right now, but with his experience on the streets, it’s usually never true. But, this man doesn’t know he’s homeless, he just thinks he collapsed or something. Which is good.

So, he can either go with him somewhere – inside a shop, he assumes – or he can try his luck by himself, but in this state he thinks he’d probably just pass out again and then not wake up.

Levi pulls his hand out from his hoodie pocket (it’s still red and pale and shaking) and puts it in the blondes’ hand. He hisses at how cold Levi’s hand is, but says nothing.

He heaves Levi onto his feet and catches him with an arm around his waist when his knees buckle again.

“Do you want to go get a drink?” He asks, looking down at Levi. “Or do you live nearby?”

Levi hesitates. “I-I… No. I live out, and I don’t – I don’t have money with me,” he mutters, keeping his eyes low. The man hums in acknowledgement.

“That’s fine,” he replies, “I’ll buy you a drink, then. And some food, you look like you could do with some.”

“Fast metabolism. It’s a curse,” he lies, and the man nods with a deep chuckle.

“I’m Erwin, by the way. Erwin Smith. I’m a teacher at Sina private school,” the man – Erwin – introduces, and Levi hums.

“Levi,” he utters, and decides to just leave it at that. Erwin, thankfully, doesn’t say anything other than, “well, it’s nice to meet you, Levi. Maybe not the best circumstances, but still.”

Levi thinks that he agrees with that, but he keeps quiet and lets Erwin guide him down the street until he can take more of his weight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed this part! I'm enjoying writing it. As always, I love hearing feedback, so feel free to drop a comment with anything you liked or some tips or things you'd like to see written! <3
> 
> Also, would you rather longer parts? Usually my chapters around 4-6 thousands words long, but I kind of like the brief chapters right now. What do you guys think?


	4. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really, really enjoyed writing this chapter, so I really hope you guys like it!

Levi realises a few things as Erwin helps him into a coffee shop.

One thing, is that Erwin is tall. And he means, he’s tall. He’s got to be at least six foot, and from what he can tell with their closeness, he’s built, too.

Another thing is; they probably look somewhat ridiculous. Levi, five-foot-three, in wet, loose, somewhat raggedy clothes and a harsh appearance in general (he’s been told, despite his height, he apparently looks – or used to look, when he also had muscle – intimidating, with his dark hair, built physique, the tattoos he has, his dark, shadow-rimmed eyes and often cold attitude), hanging off of a towering, well dressed and groomed private school teacher. But, hey, people are looking at him for once.

And, the last thing, is that Erwin is kind. He has a rather… Dominant personality, for lack of a better word – confident, perhaps, but even more so – but other than the signs that he’s someone who’s used to being responsible and in charge, he’s nice. He gives Levi his dark tartan scarf and tightens it around his neck and chin, and he makes conversation until they reach a coffee shop that makes Levi want to immediately leave.

It’s one of the more expensive looking café’s, with gentle music playing as background under everyones chatter. The lights are fancier than necessary, and so is all the furniture and décor. Everyone inside looks more like Erwin than like Levi.

The woman  behind the counter greets Erwin as if they’re familiar with one another, and then she looks warily at Levi.

“The usual,” Erwin says pleasantly, ignoring the elephant in the room that is Levi, and then looks down at him. He’s since taken most of his weight, though his legs are still shaking and Erwin hasn’t removed his arm from around waist, or taken his scarf back.

“What do you like, Levi?” He asks, and honestly, Levi couldn’t care less as long as it’s hot.

“I, ah, I like tea,” he says instead, and Erwin nods.

“And a regular tea and how about a toastie for both of us?”

“Of course,” she smiles tensely, and Erwin guides Levi to a seat in the far corner of the café where they can be alone, and he takes his suit jacket off and lays it across the back of the chair. Levi keeps his on and slouches in his chair.

It’s warm inside, thankfully, and Erwin still doesn’t seem too bothered about immediately getting his scarf back.

“You work at Sina,” Levi brings up, and Erwin smiles at that, nodding.

“Yeah – I’m an English and guidance teacher there, have been for around seven years now,” he informs him, resting his hands on the oak table. “What about you?”

Levi bites his lip. “I, uh, I work around at the moment… I actually just had some problems with my job, so I’m just doing little jobs now. ‘was thinking about looking into tutoring, or doing some music or something if I can get – if I can fix my instruments, anyway,” he shrugs.

Erwin raises an eyebrow curiously at that.

“You taught?” He assumed, and Levi shook his head dismissively. He waited until the woman left after placing a tray with a mug of coffee and a cup of tea, and two toasties on the table to speak up again.

“No, but, I’m assuming you’ve picked up on it, but I am French. I’m assuming there would be some students taking a course that could use some help,” he said, and it was true. He had been considering tutoring, but then he’d ended up on the street. He didn’t think showing up to tutor someone with dirty clothes, looking like he hadn’t eaten in a week, and no supplies either, would be the best idea.

Erwin nodded his head, cupping his coffee while Levi reached for his tea. It hurt his hands with how hot the cup was, but it was good.

“I thought so,” Erwin admits, nodding, and he takes a quick sip of his coffee, flinches slightly, and blows across the surface of it.

Levi just waits until it cools down enough and takes the heat from the cup until his hands stop shaking.

“You should go for it – I know the French course at Sina is popular. I could even recommend you as a tutor,” he offers, and he seems so sure of that, and Levi presses his lips together and nods.

“Perhaps,” he murmurs, and sips his tea.

“But you also play music,” Erwin comments, and Levi’s lips twitch. He’s a curious man, evidently.

Levi nods. “Yeah. Learned when I was young – I had piano and violin lessons. Parents wanted me to be posh or something,” he jokes, sips his tea, “but I was also teaching myself guitar.” At least he can say that that’s all true. His parents got him good lessons when he was younger, and he’s pretty damn good at the instruments he plays – but he’s not been able to play any of them for a while now.

“That’s cool. I couldn’t play an instrument for my life – my parents focused on making me pass maths and chemistry more than anything,” he says, and Levi chuckles softly and moves onto his toastie, hesitantly. It’s warm under his fingers and compared to the food, or lack of, he’s eaten within the past two weeks, he’s somewhat confident he can say it’s more than it all combined.

His stomach twists at the sight and smell of it, but he forces himself to take small, slow bites. He already stands out like sore thumb in here, he doesn’t need to look like even more of a starving mess.

They’re quiet for a few minutes as they eat and drink, letting the mundane sounds of the café replace their lack of conversation, until Erwin speaks up again.

“That’s a nice ring,” he comments, and Levi raises his eyebrow questioningly. Erwin’s eyes – so strikingly blue – flicker down to his right hand, and Levi follows it. His cheeks heat up and, subconsciously, he puts his hand on his thigh under the table.

“Thanks,” he mutters, and Erwin cocks his head to the side slightly.

“Married?” He asks. Levi presses his lips together in a thin line.

“Used to be.”

He hasn’t gotten around to getting rid of the ring yet – he knows it’d bring in a pretty penny, enough so that he wouldn’t have to overly worry about washing clothes, showering, or eating for at least a month if he spent it carefully – but he just…. Can’t bring himself to do it. And, until he does, he doesn’t trust putting it in his backpack just in case.

Erwin’s expression falters, and he glances down briefly. “I’m sorry,” he says, sincerely.

Levi waves the apology away and picks up his tea. “It’s fine,” he says with a shrug, and sips his tea. He moves on quickly.

“You?”

Erwin laughs a little. “Never found the right man I suppose,” he jokes, casually, but Levi feels his eyebrows go up a little. He doesn’t say anything about that, though.

“One day,” he replies, and Erwin’s eyes twinkle.

“One day,” he agrees.

They spend quite a while in that café. Erwin orders some desserts despite Levi repeating the fact that he doesn’t have his wallet, and Erwin says he doesn’t care. He talks about his work and the school and the students, and he offers, once more, to recommend him as a tutor. Levi declines it again. He says he hopes to hear Levi play the piano, or the violin someday, and Levi assures him that maybe, one day.

He learns a lot about Erwin. Erwin was born in Germany but moved when he was eight, so he knows both German and English rather fluently and formed more of an American accent, but still manages to pull out a perfect German one, too. He says something in German that Levi doesn’t understand, so he says something of his own in French in return, and Erwin laughs. Levi decides that it’s a nice sound.

He asks if Levi has a phone (which shakes him, slightly, because people don’t usually ask if someone has a phone unless they have a reason to believe they shouldn’t, and as far as he can tell, he’s covered the fact that he doesn’t even have a house completely) and he’s hesitant to give him his number, but a part of him wants to see him again, and he reluctantly gives it over so Erwin can type his number in and save it to his contacts.

Erwin makes him promise to text him later so he can save his number into his phone, too, and he does promise.

Erwin pays and leaves a generous tip, and they walk outside. It’s stopped raining, but it’s rather windy and still shockingly cold.

“You’re looking better now,” the blonde comments, and Levi looks up at him.

“I’m feeling better,” he agrees with a nod, shoving his hands into his pockets. His fingers brush the packet of cigarettes, and he has a brief impulse to light one. He feels like that would be a bad thing to do in front of Erwin, dressed in his suit with an expensive bag over his shoulders and a watch that probably costs more than Levi himself on his left wrist.

Erwin beats him to it.

“You don’t mind if I smoke?” He asks, and from the pocket inside his jacket he pulls out a packet of Marbolo’s and a lighter. Levi startles for a moment, his lips twitching, and he pulls out his own packet of L&M’s.

“Only if you don’t mind,” he says, and Erwin chuckles again. He lights one of his own and takes a puff of it, but before Levi can light his own, he’s offering it to him.

Levi quirks an eyebrow ever so slightly, but puts his pack away and takes the one offered to him. It tickles down his throat and settles into his lungs before he blows it out to the side and hands it back to Erwin, who sets it between his lips and watches him. It strikes him as oddly intimate.

They wander the dark streets for a while, under the Christmas lights set up and around the large Christmas tree set up in the town centre, and through the throngs of Christmas shoppers, and they go through that cigarette and one more (this time one of Levi’s). Erwin doesn’t seem to be in a rush to go anywhere, and he seems to quite enjoy taking Levi around the streets now that he has a full stomach and isn’t in imminent danger of hypothermia.

“I’m not a huge fan of the weather during winter, but I do love the Christmas decorations,” Erwin comments, his eyes trained on a set of Christmas lights. “You should see the Christmas markets in Germany this time of year.”

“I wish I could,” Levi replies genuinely.

Erwin glances back down at him for a moment, silently, and then gives a soft chuckle. “It’s getting late,” he begins, and Levi glances at his watch subconsciously (it reads eight-fourty-nine), “and I have a lot of papers to mark tonight, so I’m going to have to tap out now.”

Levi tilts his head up to look at the blonde, pressing his lips together, and Erwin laughs.

“Don’t pout, we’ve only spoken for one day,” he jokes, “but yeah, I do have to leave. Are you alright out here?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Good. Text me sometime, maybe we can get something better than a quick toastie to eat next time. Gute nacht, Levi.” He touches his shoulder, fingers brushing his neck, and then he walks away from him.

When Levi lays down in a secluded area inside the subway, not hungry, he realises he still has Erwin’s scarf.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you guys think? Let me know in the comments! I really enjoyed writing this part, so I hope you enjoyed reading it! Thanks for reading, I hope you're looking forwards to the next part!


	5. Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ending is kind of rushed and I might edit more in later, but it's midnight and I have a test tomorrow that I've not studied for so I'll do it later! Hope you enjoy it!!

He wakes up to gentle tugging on his bag. It’s an odd feeling, and he’s learned never to jolt awake when he thinks someone might be there while he’s sleeping on the streets, so he manages to stay still and breathing normally, and slowly, he cracks his eyes open. His view, however, is blocked by two thighs directly in front of him. To his right, there’s another pair of legs loitering, someone looking around.

“Hurry up Callum,” the man looking around hisses, and the man right in front of him snapped back, “I’m fucking trying, I don’t want the bastard to wake up.”

Levi waits for a moment, thinking over his options. There’s not many. He could let himself get robbed of whatever little things he still has, or he could try his luck.

He takes a breath and decides, fuck it, and sits up suddenly, grabbing the mans wrist. He pushes himself onto his knees and glares up at the man. The man has dark, kind of greasy hair that reaches his shoulders, some hidden under a beany, and he dark, raggedy clothing. The other man looks more put together, less like the pot-head the close guy is. Both are, otherwise, the average-looking kind of guy – not some jock or gym lad, but they’re tall, beefy, and arrogant.

“Don’t,” he says, coldly, and forces himself to be as intimidating as he can.

The man at him jumps visibly, but he twists his wrist free to harshly grab Levi’s.

He had debated on just tackling the man, but he isn’t one on senseless violence. He had just hoped they were all bark and no bite, but, unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

“Or what?” He sneers, tightening his grip for emphasises. Levi isn’t sure of what to reply with, so instead he curls his left fist and throws it into his face. It has a good throw, but lacks the strength and power he once had.

Still, it pushes the man back and onto the floor, and Levi jumps to his feet.

“Last chance,” he mutters, but he’s the one against the wall, “you can walk away and I won’t say anything.”

The lookout stalks forwards, a furious look on his face and his fists curled.

He doesn’t even say anything before he punches Levi and advances, and Levi does not expect that hard a punch from the man. He trips back against the wall, but he springs forwards at him, throwing his fists. He only gets a couple of hits in before hands on his shoulders pull him back, under his armpits and over his shoulders, effectively restricting him already. He tries to kick his feet back, but the man only has to lift a bit and the curse of his short height comes back to bite him when he scrapes the floor.

The fists come in quick, rapid succession, and he chokes on gasps and moans, doubled over in some laughing pot-heads grip.

They throw him off to the side and pot-head joins in on the fun with a few kicks, and they don’t even bother to look through his bag after that. “Probably just full of heroin, fuckin’ worthless bum,” one spits at him.

He lays there until his body stops aching enough for him to get up and stuff whatever fell out of his bag back in, and he decides that it’s in his best interests to get out of that subway now.

The cold had made his muscles stiff, and each step makes a jolt of pain from his thigh to his hip whip through him. His jaws till feels tingly, and his stomach is sore, but he focuses on the cold sting in the air when he walks outside instead.

At least it’s not raining, or snowing, and it’s not even that windy. He thanks whatever luck is on his side for the small things, and checks his watch. There’s a scratch on it, but he can still read that it’s only past six in the morning. With nothing better to do, Levi wanders until he finds a semi-sheltered alley on the main street, and waits for the rush of people in the morning in the hopes of making getting a glance.

 

Later, he counts the money he has and finds, much to his displeasure, some of it had fallen out during his morning scuffle. He counts it twice, and has to decide – should he wash his clothes today, because the pair he’s wearing’s worn thin, or should he wash himself at the gym/pool, because it’s been a few days, or should he eat?

He has one other change of clothes that are clean, so he can wear them. He also ate well yesterday, so he can go another couple of days with less. But the grime and grease on his skin is almost unbearable, so he gathers all his money and pays for the cheapest option at the gym and takes a long shower, using a small amount of the shampoo in the travel-sized bottle he has.

He feels like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders when he leaves and puts on a fresh, clean pair of clothes, and brushes his teeth with the cheap, travel toothbrush and toothpaste he has. He almost feels like a normal person again, if he ignores the blossoming bruises on his stomach, legs, and face.

Levi wanders until places begin to open and he finds himself inside a bookstore, his fingers drifting over the spines of the books and tired eyes skimming over the descriptions on their back. He finds one that catches his eye, and even if it isn’t a library, he takes it out and opens it to the first page.

He reads until he gets sucked into it, leaning against the wall beside the bookshelf, and he only stops when his legs protest from standing for so long.

 He slips the book back into its place on the shelf, and slumps into one of the offered chairs in the side of the store, letting his legs stretch slightly and rest.

Running a hand through his hair, he lets his eyes close for a moment. He feels utterly drained and tired, and now clean and with fresh clothes on, he feels like he could just fall right asleep. To avoid doing that in a public shop, though, he forces his eyes open, and decides to pull his phone out of his pocket to check the time.

Instead, he sees his contacts still open and it reminds him of Erwin. His lips twitch slightly and he remembers the new scarf around his neck, and he quickly opens his contacts to send a message to the blonde.

_Hi Erwin, it’s Levi. Thanks for last night, but I still need to give you your scarf back._

He hits send and shoves the device back into his pockets, and forces himself to his feet and out of the warm bookstore and back onto the mainstreet. It isn’t too busy with how early it is, but it has the usual morning rush of businessmen and students on their way to school.

He tries to ignore the groups of them wandering the streets, yelling and laughing way too loudly for this time in the morning, but it only worsens the throbbing behind his eyes, and he grunts something under his breath, rubbing the bridge of his nose gently.

He weaves through a group of them until he’s somewhat in the clear of the teenagers, and then he pulls his phone back out. Erwin had replied ten minutes ago.

_Hey Levi, I enjoyed last night too. And you can keep that, but if you want an excuse to see me again, we can go with that._

Levi scoffs at the message, but his lips twitch upwards.

_I’ll be free tonight._

The text comes quickly now that Levi’s read the first one, and he thinks for a moment. He’s in no position to be doing that, but he overlooks it.

_Well, I might just be around the market tonight_

He responds with, and then he waits until Erwin replies to that, and he puts his phone away again, swapping it for his packet of cigarettes and lighter. The idea of meeting Erwin again sends his stomach churning with mixed emotions – anxiety and nerves, excitement, and something he hasn’t felt since his first few dates with her, years ago.

That part makes him feel bad, but he ignores that for focusing on his cigarette.

He wanders for a while, before he decides that, with his very little money and meeting with Erwin tonight, he might want to try and fix that to his best ability, which, unless he’s willing to really put himself out there on the streets, isn’t great.

He starts by heading to the recycling centre which he frequents, and receives one of the bags. It’s a tedious task, but it gets him some money, so he spends a lot of time gathering things to recycle in exchange for some small coin. It’s not a lot, but after a while he has five odd dollars and scrapes on his fingers from stray glass.

He’s tempted to spend some of it on a quick snack when his stomach rumbles, but he has a cigarette instead and forces his appetite down.

It gets dark quickly, and the town floods with teenagers when school lets out. Levi recognises the Sina school uniform all too quickly. He’s somewhat disappointed when yet another group of teens ask him to buy them alcohol, but they say he can keep their change if he does, and they give him way too much money and he caves.

He feels like scum for doing it, but he has an extra twelve dollars, because apparently even private school students have more money than him.

He walks away from them as casually as he can, but he still feels like shit. He decides that, with his spare time, he might as well head to the market in case Erwin is there early, and he looks at all the festive stalls and lighting, and the Christmas music playing from some speakers around, and the smell of hot chocolates and eggnog.

He’s staring at a stall with handmade jewellery and at a specific set of earrings when a hand sets on the small of his back, and he jumps half-way out of his skin.

“Sorry,” Erwin says, and he forces tension out of his shoulders.

“Do you have a thing for sneaking up on people?” Levi bristles, and Erwin just looks smug.

“Only for short, dark haired mysterious men,” he says, and Levi jokingly rolls his eyes.

“What were you looking at?” He asks, and Levi’s eyes drift towards the pair of earrings on the stall. They’re a pair of silver gems with black chains leading to a small hoop, and they particularly caught his eyes.

“They’re quite nice,” Erwin agrees thoughtfully, and he still hasn’t taken his hand from his back. He glances at Levi thoughtfully, before stepping back.

“Come on, how about a drink,” he offers, and Levi’s lips twist.

“I’m not really a huge drinker,” he admits, and Erwin raises his eyebrows.

“One drink? On me?” He says, and Levi thinks for a moment, watching Erwin from his side. Eventually, he sighs and nods.

“Fine,” he says, and Erwin smiles down at him.

“Good,” he grins, and then he guides Levi through the market and to the stall selling festive but still alcoholic drinks. Erwin orders two and hands one to Levi, who hates that Erwin insists on paying when he finally has money – not much for anything else, but still enough for that drink.

It’s kind of bitter on his tongue, but it’s not too much so that it’s unpleasant to drink. He can taste the alcohol on his tongue and feel it burn the back of his throat, but it’s one drink and he, somehow, trusts Erwin.

They walk through the markets for a while, browsing the stalls, and Levi enjoys listening to the stories Erwin tells him. Mostly he speaks about his students and the bullshit they pull out in class sometimes, and Levi brings stories up from a couple of years ago and pretends they were more recent.

Erwin lights a cigarette and takes a few puffs of it before he offers it to Levi, and he watches oddly intently as he takes it. His eyebrows furrow and he steps closer to Levi – just a little too close – and he steps instinctually back, tense, before he forces himself to relax.

He gives Erwin a questioning look and blows smoke to his side.

“What’s with the sudden interrogation look?” He asks suspiciously, and Erwin is silent for another moment.

“I thought it was those Christmas lights at first,” the blonde mutters, and then he touches Levi’s cheek. The slight pressure makes him flinch, and then he remembers. He had gotten used to the dull ache throughout the day that he’d forgotten about it.

He looks away, feigning nonchalance, and puffs the cigarette again.

“What happened?” Erwin asks, and Levi shrugs dismissively.

“I… Fell,” he settles on, but it sounds like as bullshit as it is and Erwin scoffs. For a moment, he looks angry, and it isn’t a nice look on him, but he reigns it in.

“And the truth?” He coaxes, and Levi rolls his eyes defensively. What does he care?

“Some trouble on the subway this morning. But they didn’t get away fine either,” Levi says, and Erwin raises an eyebrow.

“They?” He looks Levi up and down briefly, and then scoffs. Levi lightly slaps his hand away from his face, folding his arms across his chest and glaring at him.

“I could beat your ass, Smith,” he states, and Erwin smirks slightly. He changes whatever he’s about to say at the last second, though, presumably to something more socially accept.

“Don’t make me laugh, Levi. And don’t call me that – I’m too used to my students saying that, and I really don’t want to associate you with my students.”

Levi cocks his head to the side, but Erwin changes the topic quickly by looking pointedly at the cigarette dangling from Levi’s slim fingers.

“Fuck off if you think you’re getting that back,” he scoffs, and places it between his lips before walking away from Erwin. It, unsurprisingly, doesn’t take him long to catch up.

He catches Levi’s arm and pulls him back to his side.

“Are you free tonight?” He asks, and Levi raises an eyebrow.  “It’s Friday,” Erwin continues, “and I don’t have much work to do. I can give you some actual good wine and a movie. I’ll even let you pick dinner.”

It’s a tempting, innocent offer, but it raises red flags in his mind.

“What do you want?” Levi asks, eyes narrowed, and the question takes Erwin by surprise.

He blinks his eyes innocently. “What? Nothing. Well, hopefully a good taste in food,” he says, and Levi presses his lips together. Right, that was a stupid question, but not so much on the streets.

“Sure,” Levi says, swiftly moving on. Erwin picks up on that and nods, smiling.

“Good.”

Erwin doesn’t bring up the bruises again and Levi’s completely fine with that. They look some more at the stalls and Erwin disappears quickly to buy something while Levi’s looking at a different stall, and then he guides him down the street and to where he’s parked his car. Levi’s never been great with cars, but at the very least he can tell when one’s expensive, and his expensive-radar goes off when he sees Erwin’s.

The blonde just smiles knowingly and waits until Levi has his seatbelt on before he takes off.

 

His house is, unsurprisingly, in the nicer part of town, far from where Levi sleeps currently, and he leads him through the posh lobby and to the sixth floor of the apartment lot. The elevator leads into a short hallway and, as far as Levi can tell, there’s only two apartments on the floor, and Erwin’s is the one to the left.

Erwin flicks the light on and kicks his shoes off towards the side, and Levi follows suit, grimacing at his worn shoes set next to the posh, oxford-style shoes, but he also hangs his coat up next to Erwin and takes a seat on the large couch that Erwin gestures to. The coffee table is neat for the majority, but he can see a stack of papers that have a mix of neat and messy writing on it, and then neater writing standing out in red ink littered around it for corrections.

He listens to Erwin mess around in the open kitchen behind him and glances over the papers – student papers, obviously, that he’s mostly through marking.

Erwin returns with two glasses of clear, sparking liquid and hands one to Levi before he sits down. He smiles at the papers, sipping his drink and setting it on a coaster on the table.

“Some students right the strangest things,” he chuckles, and Levi’s lips twitch.

“A lot of my teachers didn’t like me for writing bullshit comments on half of my essays,” Levi says, and Erwin smirks slightly.

“You said you had instrument lessons and made it seem like you were from some extremely posh background, yet here you are with your sailor mouth and cussing at teachers as a teenager and an adult,” he jokes, and Levi laughs quietly.

“I guess you’re right,” he nods, and he takes a sip of whatever Erwin gave him. It’s definitely wine and it scratches his throat, but leaves a pleasant aftertaste in his mouth.

For a while, they just sit and talk. Erwin pours them another glass of some fancy looking wine and Levi marvels at how he manages to afford any of this – but, then again, Sina Academy is only one of the largest private schools and has many people coming from different cities, and many exchange students – and he opens a window and they go through another cigarette together.

Erwin puts on some movie on Netflix and they decide on a Chinese takeaway for dinner, and before it arrives he tops their glasses up again. By the time they’re finished dinner – Levi finishes half of his portion before his stomach feels like he’s going to explode, but he insists on putting the rest in a tub for leftovers – he’s definitely tipsy and it’s pleasant for the first time in a while.

Erwin, apparently, holds his alcohol much better. Levi tells himself it’s only because the man is a giant and Levi’s a half-starved dwarf rather than an embarrassing lightweight.

Either way, he ends up rambling to Erwin about when he moved to America and how people used to bully him for his accent until he was good enough at perfecting an American one. Erwin makes him drop his false American accent and picks up his German one, too, and it makes Levi smile.

He blames it on the wine that tastes increasingly better the more he drinks it.

“J’aime ce vin,” Levi mutters, and Erwin raises an eyebrow.

“The wine,” Levi repeats, in English this time, “I like it.”

Erwin chuckles. “I can tell,” he jokes, and Levi hits his shoulder, or, he tries, but he hits the couch instead.

“I told you it’s better than whatever you can buy at the stalls,” he states, and Levi hums.

“Tu l’as fait,” he confirms.

“English or German, Levi. I’m afraid I don’t know French.”

Levi’s cheeks heat up when he realises he had, in fact, not said that in English like intended.

“You did,” he repeats, but it holds the tone of a question. Erwin smiles, though, so he assumes it was English, because he doesn’t know German, and that wasn’t French.

“Better,” he replies, and Levi relaxes. The glass suddenly disappears from his hand, and when he opens his eyes, Erwin had reached over and grabbed it. His eyebrows furrow and he glares at the blonde.

“Why have you got that? Je n’ai pas fini.”

“You almost dropped it, Levi,” Erwin says with a smug smirk, and Levi looks away.

“Fuck off,” he says, and Erwin laughs.

“You can drink as much as you want – well, no, actually, I’d rather you not pass out – but I’d also like if my couch wasn’t the one drinking as well.”

“Whatever,” Levi replies and snatches the glass back, but he does make sure to set it down on the coffee table when he’s not drinking from it.

Erwin changes the movie when that one finishes, and Levi doesn’t mind – he hardly remembered there was a movie on in the first place.

“Quand – when did you start smoking?” Levi asks at one point. Erwin is standing by the large window with a cigarette in hand. He’s unbuttoned his shirt and rolled the sleeves up to his elbows, and his tie is somewhere on the couch. He looks better like that.

Erwin hums thoughtfully for a moment. “Well, I first tried it when I was a teenager, but I only actually started smoking probably around… Twenty-five? Around then, anyway. I still don’t do it a lot, but there’s something about sharing a cigarette with someone that I enjoy,” he shrugs, and pointedly offers it to Levi.

Levi takes it and holds it between his lips, letting the smoke escape it after a long drag. His heart, unexpectedly, picks up for some reason, and Erwin sits down beside him. Levi takes another drag and lets the smoke roll out past his lips, and something flashes across Erwin’s face.

Quickly, though, suddenly, he stands up.

“You’re drunk,” he says, and Levi frowns as his stomach drops.

“Pas assez,” Levi mutters, and Erwin doesn’t reply except for offering him a hand. Levi takes it, hauling himself to his feet with his help, and he follows him through his lavish living room and into a bedroom with dim lighting. The bed in the middle of the room is larger than any Levi has had, and the curtains are pulled back to reveal floor-to-ceiling length windows overlooking the city. Levi breathes out something like “c’est beau”.

Erwin takes the cigarette from Levi’s fingers and stubs it out on the ash tray on the dressing table.

“Shirt off,” Erwin says, and Levi flushes.

“Buy me a drink first,” he retorts.

“I did,” Erwin laughs, “but you don’t have a spare change of clothes with you, and it’s late.”

Good point, Levi thinks to himself, and Erwin chuckles. Apparently he had said that out loud.

“Fuck your wine,” he mutters and struggles out of his shirt, chucking it aside carelessly. He trips out of his jeans like he would when he stumbled home after a night out with he and then a hand on his elbow guides him to the large, soft bed which he has no complaints about.

A few minutes later the bed dips, but he’s comfortable with his eyes closed.

“Sleep well, Levi,” Erwin mumbles.

“Dormez bien,” he mutters back, and he feels something brush the bruise on his face before he falls asleep the fastest he has in the past few months.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed it! Feel free to give me any feedback, I love it!


	6. Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for brief, non-graphic (in my opinion) mentions of abuse in the beginning in italics.
> 
> It gets a bit sad in this part, but nonetheless I hope you like it! I am trying to keep it as realistic as possible instead of just, like, immediately having them do the do and Levi move in and everything's fine, so I hope you're enjoying the slow-burn of it, or whatever aha.

_“No, no – hon – stop, please.” She hit and punched at his chest. There was blood on her fingers from where she’d smashed a bottle accidentally and the little shards of glass had sliced her fingers._

_“You don’t get it!” She yelled, and Levi continued to try and block her clumsy hits, to push her hands away and calm her down._

_“Then help me understand it,” he asked, pleading, and she just shakes her head._

_“I’m not good for you, Levi, look – look at us, for Christ sake!”_

_Levi shook his head furiously._

_“No, you’re not, we’re just – we’re just in a bad place right now. Let me – let me help you,” he begged. It ticked her off, and her foot stomped down onto his, and then onto his shin. He ducked slightly and let her go, but she just went back to punching and shoving his chest._

_“Listen to me, Levi! Why are you like this? Why are you so – stupid –“_

_“Please, just calm down and we can talk – calm down –“_

_She flinched when his grip on her wrists got a little too harsh, and he instantly let go. She was a petite woman, skinny and only five’five, and she bruised easily, and Levi had let his urgency get in the way of that. He opened his mouth to apologise but didn’t get very far before a hand connected, surprisingly harshly, with his face. He felt her nail catch the skin along his cheekbone and knew it had cut it a little by the sting._

_“Levi – I’m so – oh my god, I’m so sorry,” she choked, her hands hovering awkwardly. Levi shook his head again after the initial shock and pulled her against his chest. She grabbed his shirt and her shoulders shook as she cried, muttering a chorus of “I’m so sorry” and “I’m not good for you.”_

_He didn’t say anything._

 

Levi wakes up and, for a moment, he thinks he’s in his house. If he rolls onto his other side and reaches out, he expects his hand will come into contact with her. He doesn’t do that, however, as the headache that’s pounding against his skull brings the memories of last night back. Wine might get you drunk quicker, but the hangover is hardly worth it, he thinks.

He groans quietly and sits up, fluffy bedsheets falling off his chest, and he’s momentarily shocked by the fact he’s only in his boxers. Quietly, Levi crawls out of Erwin’s bed, and he begins to locate his clothes spread out from where he’d kicked them off the night before.

He’s half way through pulling his jeans up his thighs when he notices the bruise that came from his scuffle in the subway yesterday morning, and when he looks up after buttoning his jeans, he’s startled by his reflection in the mirror above the long side dresser.

He’s changed so much in the last year and, evidently, not for the best. His hip bones push against his jeans and he can see his ribs move with each breath he takes, and it looks more sickly with the blue bruise mottling his stomach. His neck is thin and his collar bones lead to sharp shoulders that frame his spine that stretches his skin over it.

He looks horrific, and a part of him sinks – the same part that makes him sleep all day and deal with stiff limbs and near-hypothermia, the same part that spends all his money on cigarettes, the same part that thinks a little too long about the drug dealer down the street and the statistics of homeless deaths.

He’s slept relatively well the past few days, but being confronted with what he really looks like makes him feel exhaustion flood his veins and settle in his bones. He lets his eyes flutter closed, and thinks how ironic it is that _he_ is currently standing in this fancy, expensive house.

He hears the bed shift and floorboards groan as Erwin gets out of bed slowly and walks over to him, and he sets a hand on Levi’s sharp shoulder. Levi cracks his eyes open and sees Erwin, shirtless but with sweatpants hanging onto his hips, standing just behind him with a blank face. He wonders what Erwin thinks of him.

“What are you thinking?” He asks, and Levi twists his shirt in his hands. He glances down from Erwin’s reflection and back to himself.

“I didn’t always used to look like this,” he mutters. He wonders why he feels comfortable enough around this man to be like this.

Erwin nods his head, silently encouraging him on.

“Believe it or not, but I used to look more like you a year ago. Abs and all.”

“Do you want to talk?” Erwin offers, and his thumb rubs gentle circles on his shoulders.

Yes. No. God, did he want to, but what would he say? My ex-wife and I got into a semi-abusive relationship and then I got fired and evicted and for the past few months Levi’s been sleeping on the streets and dealing with hunger, drug dealers, hypothermia, illness, and abuse from almost everyone else.

No. God, no, he can’t say that. What would happen if he did? Erwin would probably kick him out immediately, and he’d never hear from him again. The first person who’d treated him like a human in months.

Or, maybe, he’d help him.

The risk was too high, and his own pride wasn’t willing to put itself on the line.

“Things just got worse after the divorce,” he settles on, “I didn’t realise they had gotten this bad.”

“Well,” Erwin says, “I don’t know the specifics of what’s happening – and you don’t need to tell me unless you want to – but if you need somewhere to stay for the night, or want to talk or get drunk or smoke, I’m here,” he says, and Levi presses his lips together.

“Thank you,” he utters, but before he could pull his shirt back on, Erwin brings it up.

“They really caught you, huh?”

Levi glances down briefly, his lips twitching. “I guess,” he admits.

“How did you run into that?” He asks, and Levi sighs.

“I was… They were going through my bag, and I was on the phone a bit away. They didn’t like that I confronted them,” he shrugs, and Erwin frowns.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and Levi scoffs.

“As far as I know,” he states, “you didn’t set them on me, Smith. Don’t apologise.”

Erwin groans. “Don’t call me that,” he says, and Levi’s lips twitch.

“Why not?” He asks innocently, and Erwin glares at him lightly.

“You know why?” He replies, and Levi just smirks.

“You know, I told you quite a bit about myself last night, but I don’t even know your last name. I think it’s only fair if you tell me a bit about yourself.”

Levi thinks for a moment, and shrugs. He pulls his shirt on, finally, and Erwin doesn’t even bother before they walk back into the living room. He makes a coffee for himself and a cup of tea for Levi, and they sit with their drinks and some waffles for breakfast, some random channel on the tv in the background. Erwin gives him some painkillers for the headache, too, thankfully.

“So? What’s your last name?” Erwin asks, and Levi swallows down the last of one of his waffles. He’s still half full from the takeaway last night, not used to this much food, but he’s determined to eat as much as he can.

“Ackerman. Traditionally Rivaille Oiseau Ackerman, but here I just go by Levi Ackerman.” Erwin nods thoughtfully, and Levi repeats the name slowly until Erwin pronounces it correctly.

“If we’re talking traditionally, then technically, I’m Irvin Sören Smith – American father and all – but it’s easier to be Erwin Smith,” he says, and Levi can agree with that. He remembers all the utter bullshit other kids gave him when he moved here and no one could say his names.

“Irvin,” Levi repeats, the name rolling off his tongue. It’s nice – more unique than Erwin, though that itself is also fairly unique – and then he nods to himself, satisfied.

“You also asked me when I started smoking, but what about you?” He asks curiously, and Levi purses his lips.

“Had my first one when I was fourteen when I was in France,” he says, “some places are quite bad for smoking where we went. But properly, only about… A year ago, a little less maybe, I guess. But hey – you said you started at twenty-eight. Just how old are now though?”

Erwin raises an eyebrow in amusement. “Well, that’s rude,” he retorts, and  Levi scoffs, rolling his eyes.

“Tell me how old you are so I know if it’s gross if we fuck,” he says, and that gets a reaction – Erwin coughs, choking on the piece of waffle he had just put into his mouth. Levi just smirks victoriously.

“Sorry, but I’m already bad enough giving a minor alcohol,” he replies, and Levi slaps his arm.

“You don’t even know how old I am,” he states, and Erwin raises an eyebrow.

“Okay, fine. Try and guess and I’ll tell you, but you have to tell me how old you are too,” Erwin says, and Levi rolls his eyes.

“Guessing? Really? Okay, fine. Whatever. I guess… Fifty-eight?” He says, and Erwin glares at him.

“My turn,” the blonde claims, and then, “sixteen?”

“You’re a paedophile, Irvin Smith.”

“And you’re looking for a sugar daddy, Rivaille.”

Levi snorts, but he caves in. “I’m seventeen,” he says, deadpanned, and then, “twenty-seven three months ago.” He had spent his birthday on the streets. Birthdays mean nothing to Levi, but it had hurt at the time.

Erwin thinks about that for a moment, rolling the number over in his mind. “Thirty-two as of seven months ago,” he says, and Levi snorts.

“You really are old,” he states.

“Bitch,” Erwin coughs, and Levi smirks. He finishes his cup of tea and sets it back on the coaster. He gets up and wanders to one of the windows, cracking it open and pulling his pack of cigarettes and lighter out of his pocket. He places it between his lips and lights it, and he lets out a content sigh at the now-familiar tickle of smoke. He hears Erwin get up and wander over to him, and Levi offers him his cigarette.

“What’s it like being a teacher?” He asks. He’s actually looked into it before – when he considered it a real option for his life.

They share his cigarette as Erwin speaks. He recounts his first real day and how long it took to get the teenagers to respect him and take him seriously. He tells him the stories of how oblivious all the teenagers are – trying to go on their phones and talk to other people, quietly discussing parties, alcohol, cigarettes, and sex without trying to alert teachers to their underage shenanigans (but the teachers were once teenagers too, of course.)

He also speaks about his best students – some kid called Mikasa, who’s apparently top of the class, and her friend who, apparently, has a huge crush on her. There’s also a giant group of them, apparently, and Erwin claims he’s never had more migraines than when he has their class, but he enjoys it.

Levi tells him stories of when he was a student and caused havoc in all of his classes, and Erwin scolds him before he realises what he’s doing. Somehow, they end up going through the essays Erwin hasn’t yet marked, and he shows where the poor kids made mistakes in the essays. He goes off on a tangent about the literature they’re studying, but Levi still listens to what he’s saying and while he finishes marking those papers, Levi puts the dishes away into the dishwasher Erwin gestured to, and then he stands by the window with yet another cigarette.

He’s gone through a lot lately, more than usual, but he remembers the seventeen dollars he has and that he can buy another pack with that. The reminder of money makes him deflate, and he goes silent while he smokes, leaning on the window ledge and looking at the busy city below.

The cough he’d first picked up on a few days ago has progressed since, and smoking does nothing to help it, at all. He chokes out a cough and rubs his chest with his thumb and index fingers. He can feel the sharp bones of his sternum under his fingertips and, for good measures, he takes another puff of his cigarette.

In a brief second, Levi thinks of all the most sheltered and warm places he can find to sleep – he doesn’t particularly feel like sleeping outside and just getting worse.

“You alright?” Erwin speaks up, and Levi hums quietly in response, but his shoulders are tense and his hand shakes when he lifts his cigarette to his lips again.

Hands set on his back and he jumps slightly, but relaxes quickly.

“You’re always so tense,” Erwin murmurs, and Levi turns his gaze forwards again.

“I have good reason to be,” he mutters.

“And why’s that?” The blonde asks, and Levi closes his mouth tightly.

“I can’t tell you,” he says. Erwin sighs, but he nods and doesn’t press further other than by rubbing Levi’s shoulders. He’s oddly aware of how large Erwin’s hands are. Fuckin’ giant.

“Shouldn’t you go get a shirt on?” Levi questions, and Erwin raises an eyebrow with a smug smile.

“Why? Do you not think it’s a good look?” He asks, and Levi snorts.

“Whatever. I’m sure your students would be positively horrified if they ever saw you out of school,” he states, and Erwin chuckles.

“Good thing they don’t, then.” He straightens up suddenly, letting his hands drop. He ducks off into his room for a few minutes and then comes back with a little bag – one from one of those little Christmas market stalls.

“I forgot you bought something,” Levi comments curiously, and Erwin smiles.

“I did kind of run away from you to buy it,” he points out, and Levi snorts. He leans back against the window after tapping ash from his cigarette, and he watches as Erwin pulls out a little box from the back.

“Somehow , Erwin, you manage to be both the most childish and mature, genuine and smug son of a bitch, all at the same time,” he says, and Erwin laughs, deep and loud.

“You’re too many things for me to list in one day, and way too many things that aren’t socially acceptable for me to say out loud.”

“You keep your thoughts and hands to yourself,” Levi jokes, but Erwin just smirks at him and doesn’t reply. He steps closer to Levi than necessary and opens the box, keeping it easily out of Levi’s sight.

“Close your eyes, then,” Erwin says, his voice quiet and deeper, and Levi rolls his eyes but would lie if it didn’t make his breathing stutter. He takes a puff of his cigarette and lets it slowly roll past his lips and to Erwin, and as he closes his eyes he hears him inhale it. The bitch.

Erwin sets the box on the window sill behind Levi, and then his hands are, oddly, going to his ears, and if there’s something Levi didn’t expect – it’s certainly that.

“Trust me, Rivaille,” Erwin says, gently, and Levi forces his shoulders down and eyes closed again.

He feels Erwin carefully take his earrings out – he’s had them in for, god, probably over a year, now – and then he’s putting another pair in and putting his old ones in the new box. He guides Levi to a mirror before he tells him to open his eyes, and he’s greeted by the sight of the handmade earrings he’d liked dangling from his ears. His cheeks flush slightly and he slaps Erwin’s chest.

“You cunt, I can’t afford these!” His cheeks flush darker and he backtracks quickly. “I – why the fuck did you buy me these?” He demands, and Erwin’s expression is a mix of amusement and hurt. He does feel slightly bad, but shit, he really can’t pay back him back for these.

“You don’t need to pay me back, Levi,” he says, and he steps back to his side with a hand on his shoulders – he’s become a very touchy man, apparently. “And I bought them because you really liked them.”

Levi briefly closes his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he utters, “but you shouldn’t have.”

Erwin shrugs carelessly. “I already did.”

“If it makes you feel better,” Erwin continues, “you can pay me back with that.” He swipes the cigarette from his fingers and puts it between his lips.

Levi looks back at his reflection and ignores the gaunt, pale face staring back at him in favour of the new earrings. He does love them, really, but he feels horrible at the fact that he can’t pay him back, and probably won’t be able to for a long time.

When he first ended up on the streets, he was hopeful. He doubted he would be there for longer than a month or so, but after two months, it really began to wear on him. It may not have been a long time in the grand scale of things, but it had affected him like a year. Physically, too, apparently.

For a moment, he has an urge to tell Erwin. It’d be so good to get it off his chest, to be able to spill it to someone, to say how he isn’t sure if he’s going to die of starvation, hypothermia, exhaustion, or murder first, how he hates how everyone looks at him like he’s some meth addict criminal, how he feels like the scum of society. He wants to yell that he doesn’t actually want to die, but he doesn’t want to live like this, and how he now understands why people get addicted to drugs and why people sell sex for money, and how he doesn’t want to keep going on that path, but it’s becoming more and more tempting.

Instead, he breaths in and takes the cigarette back from Erwin in a quick swipe.

“Thank you,” he mutters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it and if you did feel free to say so in the comments, it keeps me motivated to write!


	7. Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter, but it's out!  
> Warnings for violence and drug use.

_“I – ah, well – no, seriously. I don’t do that shit.”_

_“Yet,” the man in front of him countered, and Levi pressed his lips together. So far the man’s been nice to him in the past couple of days. He’s shown him the areas of the streets and what places not to go unless he’s a customer of the prostitute or drug dealer working there, and he’s told him the best ways of making money and getting by._

_And now, he’s offered him a bag of little white pills and another, small bag of white powder._

_“Hey, it’s your first time out here. You might need ‘em. Use ‘em or sell ‘em, whatever. It’s not a lot, but it’ll give you a good first high or some money,” he said, and Levi decided to shove it into his pockets before he can be seen with it. He knew what was in there, but he was sure he wouldn’t take it and the man did have a point – it could get him money. But it’s not like he’d be out here for much longer anyway, surely._

_He puts it under the cardboard in the dumpster that became his new home, and he memorised it’s place._

Levi stays at Erwin’s place for a while longer, but eventually, he does have to go. Erwin has work to do and Levi has – well, surviving to do – and Erwin drops Levi off in town when he says he needs to do shopping before he goes home.

It’s not a lie. He goes into a shop and buys another packet of cigarettes and a bottle of water, and then he wanders the town. He stops in by the library when it begins to snow, and he finds the book he’d been reading a couple of days ago and he picks up where he left off.

He feels… Something bad now that he’s left Erwin’s, even if Erwin texts him saying he hopes he got home safely with the snow picking up, and Levi assures him that he did.

He refills his water bottle up in the library multiple times and uses the bathroom to briefly clean up as best as he can using the water and soap, and he also brushes his teeth in there when he’s sure no one might come in while he’s doing so.

He sits down in one of the chairs and lets out a sigh and runs his fingers down his face. They brush over the growing bruise on his cheek and he grimaces and moves on quickly. He rests his chin on his hands and lets his eyes flutter closed for a moment. He had, for a brief moment, gotten used to being with Erwin and now he isn’t sure what to do. He tries to focus on the large problems at hand, but he doesn’t want to leave the comfort Erwin left him with.

His hands drifts over the earrings dangling from his ears and then down to the scarf settled around his neck. He wonders why Erwin bought him the earrings, why he’s letting him keep the scarf, seemingly for no reason, and he again wonders what Erwin thinks about him. If he hadn’t saw him in that alley that day, he doubts he would ever meet him.

Erwin texts Levi a bit throughout the day – once it gets dark and late, he checks in to see if he got home safely which Levi assures him he did. At some point he does drag himself out of the library and onto the cold streets. He lights a cigarette and follows it almost immediately with another one and washes it down with a swig from his water bottle.

He spares his time by wandering the streets and, for a short while, he does sit on the street in hopes of maybe just getting a bit more change. He gets twenty-odd cents, and he gives up. It’s still snowing but not too heavily, and the little flakes dust his clothes and hair and layer on the ground.

He decides to find his way back to his home – dumpster – and he keeps his head down as he walks down the streets. It’s late, and there aren’t many people out in this area – a group of edgy teenagers, some adults smoking, a drunk man – but otherwise it’s empty.

He has his hands in his pockets and head down, so he doesn’t see them step out of the alley he’s about to walk past. He almost walks right into one of the men before he notices they’re there, and he looks at them with narrowed eyes. Homeless, like him, he picks up by their general appearance. Most likely drug dealers or addicts, too.

One of them, the man slightly to his left, twists his wrist and he sees the streetlight reflect in the blade of a knife.

“Can I help you?” He asks, carefully, and he takes a step back.

“I think you know what we want,” the man in front of him says with a breath that smells like weed.

Levi stiffens and glares at him.

“I don’t have anything,” he grits out through his teeth, and his hands in his pockets turn to fists. “I’m out here like you.”

That makes the man press his lips together and the two share a look. Knife-guy looks him up and down before back at his accomplice, and he shrugs, then gestures forwards slightly.

“Gotta have somethin’,” the man decides, and a fist connects with his cheek.

He retaliates quickly, throwing his own fists, but he knows better when knife-guy steps into the fight and manages to get the upper-hand, threateningly placing the cool blade against his throat.

His heart thumps against his fragile ribcage and drowns most sound out of his ears, but he doesn’t press it down or drag it. It’s touching him, yes, but it’s a simple threat and he knows, realistically, that unless he provokes them, they most likely won’t kill him. They just want whatever he has, and then they’ll let him go. Hopefully.

It doesn’t stop his breathing from speeding up into panicked gasps.

He drowns the men out as they taunt him, spit jeers at him and his situation and appearance, growl suggestive, gross threats and laugh at him and, with the knife an ever-present threat, he doesn’t have much of a choice but to stand with his back to Knife-Guy’s stomach and take it.

They tug his hair and flick his cheek, somehow getting amusement and pleasure out of it, and then there’s fists and feet and knees hitting him. The knife moves away slightly, thankfully, but it always stays careful, and he has to trust Knife-Guy to also hold him up when each punch to his stomach makes him almost double over and right onto the blade.

His pockets are pulled inside out, and he’s so grateful that his phone is on the pocket inside his jacket and out of their reach, unless they’re going to be thorough with him. The man lights one of his cigarettes and both of them take a few drags from it, but then he puts it out on Levi’s hand and he turns his cry into a deep hiss. He forces his eyes to stay open, staring past his shoulder determinedly.

“Only had nine odd dollars,” the man laughs, and Knife-Guy snorts and presses the knife back against his throat as if his lack of money makes him deserve a threat on his life. His arm around his torso is harsher, too, but that also might be because Levi’s dipping forwards and supporting himself on it.

“Fucking pathetic,” Knife-Guy laughs, and they spend a moment, amused at how poor he is. He doubts, though, that they’re much better off than him.

The knife taps his cheek and the tip drags across his cheekbone. He can feel it gently slip through his skin, and he digs it in just a little more so that he can feel a hot drip of blood heat his wind and snow-chilled skin.

“Stop,” Levi breathes out, and the man claps his hands.

“Oh, it speaks!” He laughs, and so does Knife-Guy. He reaches forwards and smears the little drop of blood across his cheek, and then he runs his fingers through his hair – he really needs a haircut. He tugs it harshly, and Levi cringes away when he smells his breath again.

“But I’m having such a good time! What about you?”

“I am too,” Knife-Guy agrees and pushes the blade against his neck, and Levi pushes his head back, away from. He looks around, hoping that someone, anyone, will walk by, but they’re in a secluded area and it’s late. People don’t come here because of the exact situation Levi’s in right now.

The knife is gone, but then he’s on his stomach, and then on his back.

There’s kicks first, and one jolts him enough that he hits his head against the floor and for the next few minutes everything’s a blur. He vaguely processes that they finish their fun and take his money and leaves everything else on the floor. One of them spits on the floor near him and the other stamps his foot right in front of his face and he unwillingly flinches away from it.

He stays there for an intermediate amount of time, but eventually he picks himself up. He feels empty and… Oddly detached. He gathers his things and stuff them back into his back or pockets, and ignores the little red drops that stain the snow.

He makes his way, finally, to his dumpster and falls to his knees outside of it. Frost and snow coats the top of it and soaks through his clothes and he ignores the shivering that jolts every ache in his body.

He can’t breathe.

He wraps his arms around his aching, shivering torso and doubles over, his short legs stretched out in front of him, and he tries to breathe but the air runs out of his lungs faster than he can gasp it in, and it feels like the world is spinning. Salty tears sting the cut on his cheeks.

He made seventeen odd dollars and lost it all. His body aches and he can’t breathe and even if he could he needs to cough which jars his entire body.

His attention, however, is brought to the memory that decides to flicker through his mind now. He pulls himself into his home and snatches the plastic bag sticking out of the corner into his lap.

All the little pills and powder are still in there, so far untouched, and he thinks briefly.

What would she think of him now?

It doesn’t matter. He’s not seen her in near a year and she left him in this situation.

What would Erwin think?

He throws that thought away with a vicious snarl, and he opens the bag. He gently tips the powder out onto the cardboard he pulled onto his lap. He’s never done this before. He doesn’t know how much is too much or too little, or how to properly take it. Just in case, though, he adds a little more and with cold, shaking fingers, he spreads it out into a long, thin line.

It’s not like it’s heroin, he tells himself. It could be worse, but he isn’t sure it can get _much_ worse.

_“It’ll make ya feel good. Make ya feel warm and happy and comfortable again.”_

He wants to feel that again. For a moment, Erwin made him feel like that, though.

He decides to pull his phone out. There’s a crack on his screen and it says it needs to restart. He takes it as a sign.

It burns his nose horribly and he gags when there’s only little specs of it left, but it’s gone and quickly, he feels that it’s so worth it.

He can’t believe he fell this far.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh no, Levi...
> 
> What do you guys think?


	8. Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angst ahead! Next couple of chapter are going to be quite angsty, just a heads up, but I hope you like it nonetheless!  
> Also, Work Song by Hozier kind of reminds me of this fic/Levi in this fic, so feel free to listen to that - it's a good song.

He wakes up in pain and feeling nauseous the next day, and absolutely frozen. He’s on his side, and it hurts when he sits up. He has a slight headache and instantly he feels anxious, but otherwise, he feels surprisingly fine.

He doesn’t remember what happened after he snorted it, but he isn’t in the same alley as he was when he took it. He does, at least, have everything with him, at least. Even the little packet of the rest of the cocaine and the pills are still tucked into his pocket.

Judging by the light, it’s at least twelve, and there are horns from cars and loud chatting from people outside the alley he’s in. He heaves himself to his feet, but it takes him two more tries to stay up. Bile burns the back of his throat, and he can’t stop himself from vomiting. He’s only mildly surprised when there’s a small trace of blood in it.

He staggers out of the alley and ignores the strange and wary looks he receives from the people around. He figures out where exactly he is – a fair while away from where he’d started last night – and he walks until his knees buckle and he sits against a wall. He’s given up on trying not to look homeless or like a mess on the streets.

He pulls his phone out of his pocket. The clock says that it’s eleven forty, and he has missed calls and messages from Erwin on the lockscreen.

Curious, he opens their texts, and he’s horrified to see he texted him last night.

_fcku it rwinits too shittt_

_Are you drunk Levi?_

_no_

_Are you sure about that?_

_no drjnk_

_Do you need me to pick you up?_

_i fee lgood agin_

_That’s good that you feel good. Do you need me to pick you up?_

_idk where am_

_im fin_

_fine_

_better_

_Pick up please Levi._

_cant_

_talk_

_breath_

_e^_

_Where are you?_

_je nesai spa_

_mfine_

_near home_

_Are you sure?_

_Levi?_

_Reply please Levi._

_Levi?_

_Are you there?_

_Are you okay?_

The texts go on for a little while more, broken between Erwin trying to call him. He runs a hand down his face, mortified, and quickly types out a text. He just hopes he didn’t pick up any calls.

_I’m so sorry Erwin, got a bit too drunk last night_

Erwin’s response comes quickly within two minutes.

_Hey Levi, it’s alright. Happens to the best of us. Are you okay though? Gave me quite the scare. We can go get lunch and talk if you want_

Levi toys with his chapped lip between his teeth and stares at the message longingly. His clothes are slightly dirty – that happens when you sleep in some random alley – and he looks, and feels, like utter shit.

_I’ve been worse. And I’d love to, but I look like shit_

_You can come to mine then. Or I could come to yours if that’s easier?_

Levi snorts to himself.

_Yours – already out, thought a walk would do me good. It didn’t_

_Fair enough aha. Where are you? I’ll come get you._

Levi sends him his location from his phone and decides to stand up, leaning against the wall. Everything protests at any movement, and he’d love nothing more than for Erwin to speak to him in his German accent and let him sleep in his heavenly bed.

At some point he becomes aware of a car pulling up, and before he gets into Erwin’s car he pulls his hoodie up and over his head.

“Long time no see,” Erwin jokes, and Levi snorts. He angles himself slightly away so Erwin can’t see his face despite how hard he subtly tries to.

They drive back to Erwin’s and the blonde makes little conversation, and Levi follows quietly behind him until they reach his apartment. Erwin makes him some tea and sets it on the coffee table, but Levi is by the window and thrumming with anxiety.

He feels Erwin standing behind him and he sees his reflection in the window.

“Look at me,” he requests, somehow both soft yet firm, and Levi hesitates. Eventually, however, he does. Erwin’s hands pull his hood down, but he can’t help how he flinches when he feels his hand on him.

“Levi…”

“I’m sorry I – I should go,” he mutters out, but Erwin catches his arm before he can get around him. He cups his chin and uses it to force his head up so they’re looking right at each other. Well, Erwin’s eyes are going over his face – the new bruises and the cut, and then he’s looking him up and down as if he expects to see more despite his clothes.

“What’s going on, Levi?” He asks, and there’s a pleading tone in his words that he doesn’t want to associate with Erwin.

He looks away and shifts on his feet, his fingers fiddling. He used to be confident.

“This stuff,” he gestures to his face, the cut and bruises, “I got mugged last night. Fucker’s got off on roughing me up, I guess. It’s fine,” he shrugs, and Erwin lifts his hand. When Levi involuntarily flinches, he raises an eyebrow pointedly, but then he rests it on his shoulder. His thumb runs across his neck and a small sting shoots through him.

“They cut your neck,” Erwin says, and Levi raises an eyebrow. It must be small, though – thankfully nothing more than a papercut – because he never even noticed it. Then again, he supposes that he was a bit busy with the rest of the beating and then the high to notice that.

“It’s not bad,” he hurries, “I didn’t even notice that.”

“Levi.” Erwin’s eyes are sad and wary, and it sends red flags through him.

“You’re underweight and malnourished, the first time we met was when you were passed out in an alley and could very well have died from hypothermia if I hadn’t saw you, you’re ill, and you look like you just escaped being murdered.”

It sounds worse than it is, Levi thinks, and he looks away.

“It’s not that bad –“

“Levi.” He cringes when Erwin raises his voice slightly, but he forces himself to look back at him.

“What is going on? I can’t help you if you don’t tell me.”

“I don’t need your help!” Levi snaps, and he skirts around Erwin and a few paces away.

“I don’t need any help, and not any from you, Smith,” he spits, and Erwin narrows his eyes.

“You do,” he says, confidently, and he takes a few steps forwards, “you need a lot of help right now Levi, and I want to help you.”

“You wouldn’t – you can’t fucking understand,” Levi hisses. It’s getting harder to breathe again. He itches for a cigarette, or something more.

“Then help me understand, Levi.”

He has a strong sense of déjà vu from this conversation, but he feels like he was once in Erwin’s shoes.

He wraps his arms around himself, something he realises he does whenever he’s stressed or upset nowadays, some kind of mock hug. His eyes flit around the living room – flat screen television, a fancy chandelier, floor-to-ceiling windows, an open kitchen, large speakers. Erwin wouldn’t understand what it’s like to sleep in a dumpster.

He power-walks to the door and his knees buckle. Before Erwin can reach his side and help him up, though, he hauls himself up with the wall and hurries out the door without another word.

He’s halfway to the elevator when he hears Erwin’s door open again and his footsteps as he hurries over, and then his back is against the wall and Erwin is towering over him. He wouldn’t admit it, but it’s intimidating.

He hardly has time to snap at him again before he’s _right_ there, and his lips are on Levi’s.

He freezes for a moment, and then he reciprocates it. Erwin’s hand is on his hip and on his face, and he’s hunched slightly so he can reach Levi. It’s… Nice, but rushed and desperate. When he realises it’s happening, though, Levi shoves his hands up and on his chest, pushing him back, and thankfully Erwin doesn’t protest against him.

“Levi –“

“Don’t, Erwin. Just – Just don’t, not now, please,” he mutters. The blonde looks slightly sad but he nods and steps back, and Levi instantly goes for the elevator. Erwin doesn’t follow him.

He hurries out into the cold streets and realises he’s far from his usual frequented streets, but he’s so out of place in this area. So, he sucks it up and begins the walk back to into the main town, keeping his hood up and head down and going out of his way to avoid the people in suits on the streets.

It takes an hour and a bit, not including the breaks he has to make because of his weak legs, and he goes through three cigarettes on the way but there’s an unreachable itch for something more, and it’s sitting in his coat pocket. He lights another cigarette instead and coughs out painful clouds.

He sits on the streets with some plastic cup in front of him and he tries to think about everything that’s happened. He’s done cocaine. He wants to do it again. He had a knife to his neck. He just pushed the only good person in his life away, and he kissed him.

He closes his eyes and shuts his thoughts off abruptly. He has more important things to think about – like food, now that he’s got no money.

He smokes and drinks some water and scrapes the little change he gets out of the cup and into his pockets, paranoia not letting him leave it out in the open just in case someone, for some reason, decides to steal it.

Maybe he should write a sign. Some other homeless people do that, and he thinks they might get more money from sympathy. He might do that, but he doesn’t want to put his life story on a piece of cardboard. He also doesn’t want people to think he’s a drug addict.

“Hey man,” someone says from above him, and it takes him a moment to realise they’re talking to him. He cracks his eyes open and is surprised to see a teenagers face in front of him. He has blue eyes and blonde hair and looks too much like Erwin for him to be comfortable, but his hair is longer and more unkempt. Behind him is another boy with brown hair and a girl with black hair, and he feels he might have seen them before. There’s another guy, though, with brown hair, and a very petite blonde girl. They’re all in Sina Academy uniforms.

“Are you alright, sir?” The blonde kid asks, and Levi’s heart speeds up. There’s a lot of them, and he doubts he’d even stop them if they tried to mug him.

But they’re teenagers, and it’s day.

Instead, he snorts. “I think I’ve been better,” he comments, and his voice is raspy and talking makes him cough which makes him hurt. His hood falls down and the teenagers cringe and take in breaths simultaneously.

“It’s not much,” the kid says, digging in his pockets, and he pulls out a ten dollar note and hands it to Levi, “but I’ve seen you out here before and I think you could use it.”

Levi, as soon as the kid shuts up, shakes his head and tries to give it back, despite how much he wants to hold onto it and never let go. “Kid,” he says, “you shouldn’t be wasting money on me,” he states, and he raises an eyebrow.

“I don’t think I’m wasting it.”

 Levi wishes he could believe that too.

The kids go, then, but the blonde one wishes him well and tells him to get some food, and Levi shoves the money into his pocket quickly before anyone else can see it, just in case.

He does buy a sandwich with it and saves half of it for later. He walks to his home before it gets too dark again, and when everyone goes to sleep in their beds and the street people start getting up, Levi does, too. Another homeless man gives him a puff of his joint, enough to make him feel lighter but not enough to give him a proper high. He sees someone waiting suspiciously in an alley and he doesn’t question it.

He smokes a cigarette on a corner and a car slows to a halt in front of him. He hesitates for only a second before he gets into it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys like it, as always! If there's anything you think would be cool to see in this - a scenario, idea, whatever - feel free to comment them and I might include them!


	9. Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys like it!

Two weeks later and he’s only heard briefly from Erwin. He messages to say he’s sorry and to ask if Levi is okay, but Levi never replies. He can’t bring himself to.

Instead, he finds a new way of making money that makes him spend more on the pills that make him fly and powder that makes him feel alive to cope with it. He only works like that three days that week – he never does much, but it’s still too much for him to find any self respect - but he finds out it’s best to put a pill on his tongue before he does that. It gets rid of the taste.

He finds out, also, that they make much more dizzy than usual. He’s always dizzy now, and he can tell by his bruised stomach – the bruising from the fights he got into around the time he spoke to Erwin had slowly been fading, but he’d gained a few more, luckily not as bad as the first ones – and how his hips are more prominent now that he’s lost a little bit more weight. But that’s fine. He doesn’t feel hungry on coke.

He refuses to accept the idea that he might be getting addicted. He can stop, but he just doesn’t want to. And it’s not like it hurts him – it makes him feel better than he’s felt in a long time, so there’s no harm.

The weather gets worse some nights so he sleeps in shelters when it’s too bad and he has the money to do that, and sometimes he sees the kids from Sina again. They always either wave or smile at him, and sometimes they talk to him. They give him concerned looks when they see him and his face is slimmer and he coughs between words and his eyes are glazed.

He can’t bring himself to care.

Now, he stumbles out of a mans car feeling like scum, and he shoves the little money he made into his jean pockets. The man hollers something out the window before driving away, and Levi walks down the street. His clothes hang off of him, but he’d just washed them yesterday in the laundromat. He finds it ironic that he feels the most successful and human while simultaneously getting worse and worse and feeling more inhuman in real society. The people that walk past him on the streets don’t know what he’s doing to barely survive. They don’t know that he’ll go to a certain alleyway at night and either fall asleep and wake up with stiff, seizing muscles, or he’ll go there and sniff a couple of white lines and dream about when he was really, truly alive.

Sometimes he thinks he’s dead, or dying, or that he should. He searches, on night, for something in his mind – something that makes him feel like he’s still human, something that makes him still worth something. He can’t find anything.

One day, the teenagers talk to him again. It’s just the trio, and they’re sitting on the street with him. They all have hot drinks – they even bought him a tea, for gods sake – and they speak about school before asking him how he got here. It’s a fair question, and maybe it’s because they’re teenagers that he does tell them.

“I lost a lot of money in my divorce,” he says, “and then I lost my job. Without a job I couldn’t keep my apartment. I don’t have family or close friends at that time, so here I am.”

He doesn’t include any of the drugs when he talks to them about his life, or how he makes some money.

They tell him their names, and Levi stares at the dark haired girl. _Mikasa, best of the class._

“How are your teachers?” He asks, slyly, and they go on about all their teachers.

“Well, our guidance teacher – he’s also our English teacher – he actually looks like he’s been doing… Bad, lately,” Eren says, and Levi keeps emotion out of his expression and nods.

“His name’s Mr Smith, and usually he’s pretty kind with us, but he looked horrible last Monday.” The day after they kissed, after he pushed him away. “And still he looks… Well, exhausted. He gets pretty deep during PSE, too. I think something happened.”

“Who knows,” Levi murmurs and cups his tea. He watches the ground.

“I’m sure he’ll be fine, though. Jean managed to get a little out of him – apparently he had an argument with a close friend, and he’s worried for him. Hopefully they’ll just talk it out – are you okay?”

Levi clears his throat and his fingers rub his chest. He keeps coughing painfully for a moment and it saps his already low energy even further, and then he slumps back against the wall.

“Sor – sorry, yeah,” he mutters, rubs his mouth with the back of his hand, and then takes a sip of the tea they bought him from Costa.

They talk for a while more before Levi tells them to go home before it gets too dark, and they do. They wish him well and leave him be, and he sits against the wall by himself for a while. He thinks about what they said about Erwin, and it both angers and upsets him. If Erwin was smart, he would fuck off – he would stop caring about some homeless bum and get on with his life. But, he longs to phone him again and sit with him on his couch with some wine and share a cigarette and feel his hands on his shoulders and back again.

He smokes a cigarette and walks back to the sketchy streets. He stands at a corner and places a pill on his tongue between puffs of cigarettes and at some point – maybe minutes, maybe hours – later, a beat down car pulls up across from him. He staggers towards it and the window rolls down.

“Lookin’ for a good penny?” The man inside asks. He’s slightly above average in the looks department, but he’s unkempt and smells like a packet of cigarette and weed.

“I only do hands and mouth,” Levi says, words slurring, but the man lifts the roll of money he’s offering and – god. That’s more money than what he’s had together in the last five months.

“I’ll even make it real nice,” the man coaxes with a grin, and his eyes flick to a flask in his car. Whatever’s in it will help.

“I…” He hesitates, and the man just waits knowingly with hungry eyes.

He gets in the car.

They finish his cigarette and take swigs from the flask. The man is called Logan, and he seems slightly interested in Levi.

He does, at least, wait until Levi can barely tell up from down and left from right before he lays him down in the backseat of his car and his hands are there, under his shirt and on his waist. A moment later and his clothes are on the passenger seat and replaced with the mans mouth and teeth and tongue. His kisses taste like smoke and vodka and they’re gentle but dominating. He turns Levi onto his stomach and he thinks he might throw up. He’s offered a drink from the flask again before they really start and he drinks it while there are lips against his neck. Soon he feels like he’s being torn open, but he only feels it through the thick fog in his mind. He can almost pretend that it’s Erwin covering his body with his.

The man gives him all that money and drops him back off at the corner he found him.

He can’t feel anything but shame and disgust, but it’s okay. There’s white powder waiting for him.

He’s found something better than his dumpster. There’s a run down building that serves as a drug den and the people in there are, mostly, fine with anyone as long as you’re there for the same reason as them, which he is. He staggers into the building and most people in there are already high. A man is helping a woman tie a belt around her arm so she can guide a needle into her veins, and they glance at him when he comes in and falls against a wall in the corner, but when he makes a line of white they nod and don’t give him another look.

Or, maybe they did, but he passes out shortly after and can’t remember anything.

 

He wakes up surrounded by skeletal faces, and the concern in their glazed eyes is shocking. His entire body hurts and he can’t breathe properly.

“’re you with us?” A guy asks – a kid, someone who can’t be older than twenty-two but who has a bag of pills hanging out of his pocket. He’s not high yet, though. Levi tries to respond but his body won’t cooperate, and working with his mind is like searching for the right switches in a swamp.

“What have you had? How much?” He urges, and his fingers press against his neck and find his pulse. Is he dying?

“If he’s fuckin’ dying get him outta’ here – they can’t find the rest of us,” a woman hisses. There’s a joint dangling between her fingers.

“He’s not dying,” the man says, but he taps Levi’s cheek until he focuses back on him.

“What have you had?”

Levi groans. What has he had? He doesn’t even know where he is.

“P’ll… Two l’nes,” he gets out, and the feeling of his tongue moving makes him want to vomit.

The man in front of him shakes his head and finds his pulse again. He pushes his bag further into his pocket, speaking to himself.

“You could have died, man,” he says, but Levi isn’t listening. He’s too busy focusing on the way his hands are cramping and he’s choking, and then his entire body is seizing and convulsing and everything goes black and static a few moments later.

 

He wakes up and only candles and streetlights are illuminating the building. There’s something soft under his head and he can’t feel his limbs.

“You back?” Someone speaks above him and it echoes throughout his skull. He flinches.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Do you know what happened?”

He doesn’t reply.

“A no, then. You mixed a shit ton of shit together, man. Coke and poppers, and fuckin’ vodka. Do you know how many people die from mixing those? You’re so fuckin’ lucky you didn’t, man. You’ve been out for an entire day and night, and you had seizures.”

It takes him a few moments to process it, but the information horrifies him and his heart, already so weak and thread, skips a precious beat.

He tries to speak, but the man tells him not to, and for the next while he falls in and out of consciousness again – but this time it’s just to sleep.

When he wakes up again, a few hours later, he still feels horrible, unsurprisingly. But he sits up against the wall and manages to see who the person watching over him is – some young person with dark blonde hair and green eyes.

“Almost called the ambulance for you,” the guy – Dmitri – says, and Levi rubs his eyes.

“I didn’t mean to,” he mutters, voice raspy, and Dmitri hands him his bottle of water from his bag. Instantly, he checks for the money he made. It’s all there.

“I doubt you did,” Dmitri agrees, “but you did, and you almost died. I don’t think I’m the best person to be saying shit on drugs, but man, you’ve got to be more careful.”

“No one would care,” Levi mutters, and Dmitri raises an eyebrow.

“Well, now I would,” he says, and Levi narrows his eyes. He decides not to reply, and he focuses on resting for the day. He ignores the itch in his veins and he goes for a walk into town later when he can stand. His stomach flips but the fresh air is nice. He doesn’t even smoke a cigarette despite how much he needs it, determined to give his body some much needed rest from his addictions.

He still feels faint and weak and he takes multiple breaks, but he enjoys the fresh air. He sits on a bench in a park, Erwin’s scarf wrapped around his thin neck and mouth and keeps him warm. He wonders what the blonde is up to.

He doesn’t do much that day. He’s exhausted and weak, and he isn’t up for doing much more than watching the trees sway in the wind.

“Levi!” He startles at his name and soon three teenagers are coming up to him.

He raises an eyebrow at them and waits until they’re close to him, and Armin smiles at him. “We didn’t see you yesterday,” he says, and Levi ducks his head.

“Yeah, got a bit ill,” he nods, and Armin nods as well.

“You do look a bit pale,” he comments. Mikasa just looks suspicious. He doesn’t blame her.

“Isn’t school on?” He asks, eyebrows furrowed, and Armin raises an eyebrow.

“It’s finished,” Mikasa speaks up, and Levi looks at his phone for the time. He ignores the text by Erwin, and indeed, the clock tells him it’s almost four o’clock.

“Damn,” he mutters, “I didn’t even notice.”

Eren laughs lights and sits on the bench. They all speak for a while until Levi says he needs to go – he’s so fucking tired – and they let him. He trudges to his frequented streets and decides he’s had long enough to heal from his near-overdose – and thinking that makes him feel ashamed of what he’s become – and he lights a cigarette.

He itches for a pill or for some coke, but it also scares him. He doesn’t want a repeat and he genuinely doesn’t think his body will cope with it.

It doesn’t stop him from thinking about it, especially when he remembers how he got the money sitting in his back pocket.

He sleeps for a while longer and before he heads out, he puts a pill on his tongue with shaking hands.

Someone picks him up in their car and coaxes alcohol past his lips before he guides his head down, and ash from his cigarette burns his bare shoulder.

They drop him off with an extra ten dollars and finger-shaped bruises on the back of his neck.

He smokes a cigarette when another car pulls up in front of him and he doesn’t even look at it before he gets in, otherwise he would have recognised it. Blue eyes greet him from the drivers seat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked it! Thank you so much for 60+ kudos, 500+ reads, and 5 bookmarks, I appreciate it and I'm glad you guys are enjoying it as much as I am!


	10. Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's out slightly later, sorry guys, I actually went to a party once in my life aha. Anyhow, I hope you enjoy it!

“I only do hands and –“ he cuts himself off, looking at the familiar face in front of him. Erwin isn’t looking directly at him, his eyes instead roaming up and down Levi, his baggy clothes that fit him better the last time they’d seen each other, his face that his, impossibly, gotten paler, gotten slimmer, and his bloodshot eyes and trembling body.

“Erwin,” he breathes, and the blonde brings his eyes back up to his.

“Levi,” he replies, and he looks sad. And tired. And worried.

“What are you doing out so late? Have you been drinking?”

Levi presses his lips together, and for a moment, he feels slightly angry. Who’s Erwin to tell him he, a grown adult, can’t be out late and can’t drink.

“I was getting air, and who cares if I have? I am an adult, Erwin.”

He sighs, and he parks at the side of a street.

“I could – I could ask the same thing. What were you doing in this part of town at night, when you live like – all the fuckin way away,” he points out. The pill is slowly kicking in, getting more effective to him as seconds tick by, and it sends him breathing in gasps because Erwin can’t know – Erwin can’t know – and he digs his nails into his knees subtly. Ash burns his fingers from his cigarette and his body moans. His pulse is thready and it speeds up with the effects of the ecstasy, but it’s too weak to keep up with it. It hammers his bruised ribcage.

“I wanted to talk to you, and I remembered when you let me pick you up from around here a while ago. It’s just luck that you were outside and I saw you,” Erwin responds, and Levi snorts. Luck, yeah.

“Unlock the car,” he demands, and Erwin raises an eyebrow. Levi pulls at the car door handle, his fingers scrape against it, and his bloodshot, blown pupils glare at Erwin. “Now.”

“I want to talk, Levi –“

“Well I don’t want to, Smith, so let me the fuck out or so help me –“

“You need to calm down, Levi. You’re drunk.”

Levi laughs. He wishes he was just drunk. But even as he sees things in the corner of his eyes, he wants more. He wants the burning white lines mixing with the pills and pulling him up, up, up to fiery oblivion that chases oxygen out of his lungs and crushes his diaphragm and lays ants under his skin. Usually, he has nice hallucinations because he sets himself up for it. He thinks nice things and relaxes and it reacts in a similar way, but now he’s anxious, panicking, frantic, and the hallucinations are a branch from that. Shadows flit around the corners of his eyes, eyeless faces and gaping mouths and bloody claws reaching to drag his damned soul down, down, down.

“Let me out,” he repeats, says it once more, and he pleads Erwin. He’s not safe here. His safety is in a packet of white powder but he just knows he can’t do it here, not with Erwin, not in front of Erwin Smith.

“Levi, please calm down,” he says, gently, and his voice is comforting and then it changes – rasps and groans like a dying mans’ last breath and there’s blood staining Irvin’s teeth and Irvin’s lips and chin and he’s crying red.

Levi closes his eyes and claws the door handle.

“I’ll take you home, Levi. You can sleep this off and we can talk, just calm down, please.”

No. He has things to do. White lines call his name and he needs money and the only way to effectively make money is let men do what they want with his body and hope he’s too high or drunk or both to feel or remember it. He might have a man waiting for him at his usual corner right now, and that’s money that gets him food and cigarettes and vodka and pills and white lines – he doesn’t need the first one as much as the later.

Oxygen escapes him for too long and his starved brain and body give out. He slumps against Erwin’s car window.

Levi dreams of hands, then. He dreams of hands giving him another small bag of powder, of hands stripping his clothes and touching every part of him. He feels fingers hook past his lips and rub against his tongue, and he feels hands hold his jaw, hold the back of his neck until he’s choking between a mans legs and he gets called _pretty._ Hands touch his hips and the backs of his thighs and he says _no, he doesn’t do that_ but there’s money just in sight and fingers put something on his tongue and he forgets his name.

He wakes up and his body burns. The blood in his veins boil and his bones ache. There’s a soft mattress under him and the blanket over him chases the chill out of his skeleton but it scrapes his sensitive skin. The room is dark, thankfully, and it’s nice on his eyes when he peels them open. His heart hammers against his ribcage.

He’s aware of someone in the room, but he doesn’t want to lift or move his head. It’s too dark to see much, anyway, and he doesn’t want to face whoever it is. For a moment, he thinks maybe someone took him home – one of his ‘clients’, or whatever – but then he remembers getting into a car and seeing Erwin.

“I know you’re awake,” he says, and Levi grimaces as his voice bounces around his skull.

Levi parts his lips and his dry tongue moves soundlessly, his throat working to say something, but he can’t. He hears Erwin cross the room and sees his thighs blocking his view from where he lays on his bed, and he flinches when Erwin runs his hand through his hair. It’s soothing, but he remembers each time someone else would comb their fingers through his hair and it wasn’t as comforting. But this is Erwin, and he has to stop himself from leaning into the touch. It’s been a long time since someone touched him with kind intentions.

Erwin holds his cheek, lets his fingers hold Levi’s chin up, and forces him to look at him. He looks sad, and tired, and disappointed, and Levi feels guilt stir in his stomach. But then again, it’s none of Erwin’s business what he chooses to do, even if it destroys him. He hardly even knows the man, really.

“You could have come to me,” he says, quietly. He crouches, and then sits on his knees so they’re almost eye-level and Levi doesn’t have to strain to see him. “You could have told me.”

“I’ve done… Nothing,” Levi mutters, pathetically, and Erwin looks down and sighs, sad. His hand dips into the pocket of the sweatpants he’s wearing and he pulls out two little plastic bags. Levi’s heart skips a beat and he’s ashamed to admit that he wants to reach out for it, like some starved mutt greeted with some food.

“How long, Levi? How long have you been doing this?” It’s not that bad, he thinks. It’s not even been a month. He’s just… Done a lot in a short time, rather than spreading it out.

“Not long,” he says, honestly, and Erwin raises an eyebrow. Levi reaches out, then, and his bony hand grabs Erwin’s warm wrist. “Two, three we-weeks.” Erwin has to believe him. He has way more reasons not to.

Erwin doesn’t move his hand off of him. “In two or three weeks,” he said, “you went to cocaine.”

Levi grimaces and let’s go of him, looking away. That makes it sound worse than it is.

“You need help, Levi,” Erwin says, and Levi shakes his head.

“I can – I can quit – I was.” Kind of. “I’ve not had that for – for days.” Only because he nearly died, but that doesn’t mean he had no intentions of doing it again when he thought he wouldn’t die. He already had a pill less than four days after that.

Maybe he does need help.

Erwin shifts his hand so the little bag of pills are in front instead, and raises an eyebrow. “And these? Although I think I already have a guess,” he states, and Levi closes his eyes.

“You shouldn’t get,” he pauses to cough, “involved with this kind of… Stuff,” Levi tells him, and Erwin lets out a sigh. He places the bags behind him, and shifts into a more comfortable position.

“Levi, like it or not, but I’m your friend and I care about you enough to not let you kill yourself.” The words strike Levi like a punch, and he closes his eyes. He forces himself to sit up, but Erwin’s hands are on his shoulders – bare shoulders, shoulders burned by cigarettes and tainted by other mens’ hands and lips and teeth.

“I’m not –“

“Don’t even say that, Levi.” He sounds angry, now, and Levi looks back up at him. “You passed out in the car. You had a seizure, and unless you’re epileptic, I’m willing to bet it’s because of that.” He points at the drugs.

“I need to go home,” Levi mutters. His hand clutches the bedframe and he heaves himself to his feet. Erwin lets him, but he forces him to look up.

“And where is your home, Levi? Where do you live?” He asks, but Levi’s pretty sure Erwin knows now. They look at each other for a few silent moments, Erwin daring Levi to admit it, Levi daring Erwin to say it.

Levi gives in. He’s exhausted.

“Wherever I make it that night, Erwin,” he says coldly, “whatever alley or drug den that’s closest at the time, behind some dumpsters or on some cardboard.”

Erwin runs his hands through his hair and turns around, looking out the window. It’s dark outside, and he can see all the street and car lights below them.

Levi watches Erwin’s back and wonders what he’s thinking, what he feels. But he’s not been kicked out yet.

Levi sinks back onto the bed when his legs get too tired.

“Levi,” Erwin says, and he turns back around. “Why didn’t you just tell me? I would’ve helped.” Levi grits his teeth and gestures around the room.

“Look at what you have, Erwin!” He cries out, and the blonde does. He looks around his room, at the full-length windows, the expensive furniture and decorations, tailored suits in his wardrobe.

“You wouldn’t understand, Erwin. You can’t – you can’t understand what it’s like.”

Erwin presses his lips together in a thin line. “I don’t,” he agrees with a nod, “but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t help you through it, Levi.”

Levi looks away. “I didn’t need help.”

“You do now,” Erwin counters.

Levi thinks about the cold seeping into his bones every night, thinks about muscle and fat melting off his bones, people twisting his arms and digging through his pockets and people on the street spitting at his feet. He thinks about when he went from one white line to two and to three. When he stood on a corner and someone pulled up in their car and called him a whore after he sucked him off. And when he did it again, and again, and again, and ended up on his back with the last of his dignity burning like a cigarette, and how he almost died in some shithole surrounded by heroin addicts. And how he still craves for the things that almost killed him.

But then Levi thinks about Erwin, who gave him his scarf and a place to stay and some food and bought him some earrings. Who cares about him.

Erwin’s still watching him, hope and helplessness in those normally-confident blue eyes, and he tries to ignore the ache in his bones and tremors in his body.

“I… I might need help.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I hoped you enjoy it! If you want to talk to me more about this, other stories, or just SNK/AOT or talk in general, my Tumblr is killerrs-queen.


	11. Ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys enjoy it, as always!  
> Levi's personality will probably be different for the next couple of parts, and I talk about that in this part : withdrawals. 
> 
> I've done a lot of research into cocaine and ecstasy use, about their side effects, duration, withdrawal symptoms and when withdrawals start (did you know cocaine withdrawals can start 90 minutes after a dose?) and the effects of mixing the two, so all of that'll be included in these next couple parts. If anyone's curious about them so you know exactly what Levi'll face, comment and I'll tell you!

Erwin doesn’t push Levi much that night. He lets him rest while he gets rid of the drugs (Levi mourns their absence) and he orders a takeaway. Levi eats enough to make him feel sick and he tries not to make a mess with how his hands shake. Erwin subtly puts the heat up.

 They can’t avoid the elephant in the room forever, however, and eventually Erwin brings it up. A simple offer to talk, to explain to Erwin. Levi bristles – he doesn’t want nor need to talk. But he does understand that it, actually, might help. Before, he wanted nothing more than to talk to someone about it. He’ll get nowhere if he doesn’t open up (he’s still not entirely sure if he wants to get better when highs are so good.)

He tells him how his first nights on the streets went, and they seem like a distant memory. He hardly got any sleep the first few days, too scared and uncomfortable. And plus, pride and dignity was still high. He also thought he’d only be there for a couple of weeks at the most.

_It wasn’t something he could have imagined would happen to him, ever. He had a steady job, he had a good relationship, a nice home. There was no reason to think that it could all get ripped out of his hands in a matter of months. He had expected that, at longest, it’d be two, maybe three weeks. He had enough money to sleep in shelters if he rationed it, and he had done just that. Two and a half weeks later and he’d been denied by five jobs and he was out of money. He was simply sitting on the streets, trying to process that information, when someone dropped coins at his feet. He felt disgusted, but he needed it._

_He slept, properly, on the streets that night, with dirt under his nails and bricks on his cheek, and woke up aching._

He tells Erwin about the huge social shift he experienced, too. How people treated him completely differently when he was on the streets, how he lost all respect from everyone and even other homeless people found it amusing how he was so sure he would only be there for a short while. To be fair, he would too, now. He was stupid to think that he could sort something out within a couple of weeks.

_He was startled out of his daze by someone kicking the plastic cup of his change over in front of him, sending the coins sprawling everywhere. “Fucking bum, get off your arse and get a fucking job!” A man yelled, and he looked up to see someone no older than himself. He stayed to taunt Levi, kicking dirt over the coins people had given him and even stomped his foot down onto his fingers when he scraped the coins up and into the palms of his hands._

_He heard of a homeless man who woke up to two teenagers trying to set him on fire, and he didn’t sleep for the next few nights._

He tells Erwin how he had spare money that he was sure would keep him fine for the duration of his poor situation, but it had gone quicker than he realised. He was still settling from his divorce and he was still trying to sort things with her, and then there was the few things he had to settle with his work.

He recounts the day when he completely ran out of money, the day he lost half of his few belongings, the first time someone got violent with him, how he met someone on the streets who gave him the drugs and he stuffed them away in the corner of his dumpster and stayed away from them for months. Erwin, thank god, doesn’t look sad for him, or even sympathetic. He thinks he might have walked right back out if he had.

Erwin makes some tea for them and they talk about the real problem. The word ‘addiction’ makes Levi cringe, but he fully acknowledges that that most likely is his situation now. (Maybe not fully acknowledges it, but for the most part he does. He still believes he could quit by himself, yet Erwin doesn’t see it that way.) The tension that had been building since yesterday rises again. They'd manage to speak about it while both ignoring the actual problems, and they both know it. Neither of them are willing to bring it up.

“It’s not that bad, Erwin,” Levi tries, but he’s sweating, twitchy, paranoid and aching all over, and he knows all of those symptoms can go away in a few minutes. He doesn’t even want to think about the upcoming withdrawals from the ecstasy, either. At least he has a couple of days before they peak but as far as he knows, he has over a week before the withdrawals from the coke even begin to settle, and ecstasy’s apparently longer and more intense. It doesn’t help he mixed the two and did them on basically a daily basis, unless it knocked him out and he missed a day.

“It could have been worse,” Erwin says, going half way, “but it could have been way better. If it got any worse I would be vouching to take you to a hospital.”

Levi is tempted not to tell him about the overdose, but Erwin is clever and picks up on things better than he can at the moment.

“Levi…” He’s become tense, now. “Please tell me you’ve not done anything else?”

Even if he had, it’s none of his business. He’s not a fucking child. But he means well, and he forces himself to relax.

“I’ve only done those,” he confirms, and his fingers mess with each other. He can’t sit still.

“Then what is it?” He asks, voice low, and Levi waves a hand. He’s alright, and has no immediate plans of going behind Erwin’s back to find more of the drugs while he’s this weak. As long as he does that, then he should be fine. It’s not a problem Erwin needs to get pulled into.

He realises he hasn’t replied and Erwin’s fingers hook under his chin and bring his distracted gaze back to him.

“I’ll trust you, Levi, but I’d appreciate if you’ll trust me enough to tell me if anything else is wrong,” he says, and it makes Levi’s heart thump loudly. He once didn’t have a problem lying to people when it wasn’t their business, but this man managed to weasel his way under his skin and stick in his marrow and wind around his ribs.

“Two days before you came,” Levi says, caving in, and his tongue dashes across his dry lips anxiously, “I did too much. Was out for a day or two, had a couple of seizures apparently. Still, ah, still a bit shaky, I guess,” he says, trying to make it sound better than it actually is. He shows his hand which hasn’t shown signs of staying steady in almost two months, either from stress, exhaustion, strain or addiction.

“Why did you start?” The question is sudden and it startles Levi. He has to think about that.

“The temptation was always there once I was given it, I guess. It was an easy option and I could do it and the only person that’d care was myself. When I did it, I didn’t care about that anymore. It’s… Tiring, Erwin. People don’t see you as human when you’re out there. I could have died that day we met, because no one else cared. I was sick of feeling like… Like I was some scum of society and deserved everything I got.” Levi isn’t sure how to really put it into words, but that was close enough. He was tired of people seeing him with bruises and cuts and think he deserves it, sick of random people stealing from him and beating him for fun. He wanted to forget that and to feel something other than the self-loathing and disgust.

He feels the tension in his wiry shoulders and he goes for a cigarette in his pocket, but Erwin steals it from him in a quick swoop.

“The last thing you need after a – an overdose, Levi, is more substances,” Erwin says. Levi hears him swiftly avoid cursing, and he remembers today is Tuesday and he had work.

“The last thing I need,” Levi snaps, patience already too thin, “is more withdrawals.” He holds his hand out for Erwin to give it back, but the German just stares at him.

“I'm sure your heart would appreciate that,” he says, and Levi cringes. He doubts a cigarette would do much, but it wouldn’t help much either.

“Alright,” Levi replies, but Erwin's tone brushes against him the wrong way. He doesn't want to argue with him, but Erwin isn't responsible for him. Erwin isn't his father or brother or boyfriend or husband, what say does he have in what Levi's life, really?

"Do you understand how serious this is?" Erwin's tense - has been getting progressively more tense since yesterday, and it's odd to see his composure start to slip. Half of Levi is scared of it, but the other half wants to pick and tear at it, see what Erwin is really like when he's angry. "An overdose, Levi. I could have been at work, wondering if you just need space before you text me back, when in reality you're dead in the back of some crack house and probably wouldn't be found for ages because everyone else is just as close to their own deaths."

Levi presses his lips together tightly. "And?" He says, and he rises, wobbly, to his feet. "Add me to the fucking list of street deaths, see how many people care, Erwin. It's not even like I actually did fucking die -"

"You still could!" Erwin stands up gracefully, and he's towering over Levi. It'd be a lie if he said he wasn't slightly intimidated, but he's too angry to be bothered about that. He's had more abuse from shorter, skinny brats on the streets. "You got high only days after an overdose, and drunk, and stayed on the same streets you, might I remind you, almost got murdered on. You're dying, Levi, and you still don't want any help."

"Oh, fuck off, Smith," Levi spits, "this is the exact reason I didn't tell you. You think I had a choice to be on those streets at night? I'd like to fucking see you do what I have and not got drunk or high." 

"You did have an option, Levi. You had me. Why don't you tell me then, Levi. What did you do that made you almost kill yourself?" Erwin doesn't raise his voice, though, but instead he lowers it. It gets deeper and his eyes are colder, challenging, and he's subconsciously making a point of looking down at Levi, and it sends icy claws down his spine. 

Levi glares at him, his nails digging crescents into his palms. "You fucking know."

"I have no idea, Levi," Erwin states with a shrug, and they stare at each other for a silent moment, both daring each other to say it. 

"You wanna know what I did, Erwin?" Levi asks, and he takes a step forwards until they're only an inch from touching. "I would put a pill on the end of my tongue and swallow that down, and then I'd smoke a cigarette on an empty corner. A man would drive up in his car and he'd show me the money he had with him, and I'd get into his car. They'd drive a few blocks away and offer me some more alcohol or a joint or another pill or something - I didn't care, they could've game me heroin and I would've had it like a starved mutt to some meat - and then they'd pull their car to the side of the road. Sometimes we went to the backseat, but a lot of men liked seeing how I bent over them from the passengers seat to undo their jeans and suck their cock. You know, probably only twenty minutes before you picked me up, I sucked someone off. Probably still have his bruises, too."

He can see something flash in Erwin's eyes, but the blonde stays quiet, and Levi continues. "And the night I overdosed? I was already high as shit when I left, and then a man pulled up to my corner and god - a blowjob only gets someone a tenner or so, and this man had at least sixty. I always told myself I'd never do drugs, and then I told myself I'd never suck random men off for money, and then I told myself I'd never fuck for it. But this man, he gave me vodka and played with my hair, and then he pulled me into the backseat because I couldn't even stand. He tore my clothes off and I let this random man fuck me until I didn't remember my name. Then I went back to my crack house and snorted coke until I passed out."

Levi leans up on his toes about and bares his teeth at Erwin. "You know, Erwin, being homeless taught me that you're worthless, but that? That taught me that my body is worth sixty dollars in the backseat of a strangers car." 

"Could you do that, Erwin? Could you let men spit on you and call you their doll and a whore and let them fuck you and throw you on the street and know that they only see your body worth sixty dollars, but fuck, that sixty dollars can buy you more ecstasy that helps you forget how low you've hit."

Erwin swallows, audibly, and he takes a step back. "No," he says, finally and Levi steps back from him. His chest is heaving and he feels light-headed and furious at how composed Erwin is. He wants to wipe that blank expression off his stupid face, take him down to Levi's corner and drug den and show him what his life is like, and see if that finally gets a reaction out of the man.

"And I'm sorry you had to do that. But you don't have to anymore, Levi, if you'll let me help." 

"I won't have to do what, Erwin? Overdose or suck a strangers dick again?"

He knows he's testing Erwin's patience, god does he know, but it feels good. He's never been this angry before, even when men slapped him to see his cheeks turn pink or when they dug their fingers into the muscles in his back to see him squirm in the tight confines of their shitty car, and the anger feels better than the depression and dehumanisation. 

"Both," Erwin says, boldly, and Levi's teeth grinds together. 

"I'll make your life hell for the next few weeks," he states, "do you even know what the withdrawals will be like?"

"I know," he says, and he steps forwards again but it's less imposing, not intending to be threatening anymore, "and I'm willing to deal with that. You don't have to keep surviving like this, Levi." 

Levi thinks. He ignores responding to Erwin and sucks air into his weak lungs. He doesn't want to, obviously. He's more than happy to deal with a year of withdrawals if it meant he could get a job and live again, rather than let a man lay him down in his car and fuck his addictions away for a night, but he doesn't want to give Erwin the satisfaction. He doesn't have to.

"You should get some rest, Levi." He despises the softer tone to his voice. "Before anything actually kicks in." 

Levi forces his tense shoulders down. He's far from done yelling at Erwin, but he remembers the shift in his face, his break in composure, and it makes him feel more human, more real. Someone's finally treating him like something other than a sick dog, someone isn't afraid to tell him what he's done to himself. It's refreshing, in a strange way.

They walk in silence into Erwin’s bedroom, and Erwin gives him a pair of his pyjama shorts to wear. He ties them tightly around his hips to keep them up, and they reach just past his knees.

He ditches his jumper, the thick material itching his skin, and he just wants to sleep away the symptoms he’s already facing and the more to come. Erwin turns the lights off except for a dim lamp, and he finds a spare, new toothbrush and they brush their teeth before Levi lays down in bed, facing the window, and the bed dips behind him as Erwin lays down moments later.

“Thank you for being honest,” Erwin says quietly, and Levi glances back at him. He can see his silhouette just behind him, see his blonde hair in the dim light from the lamp. Over his shoulder, he sees someone else – a shadow, towering over Erwin, and just watching them.

He ignores the hallucination in favour of Erwin’s hand on his hip.

“Thank you,” Levi utters, and he watches the city lights through a gap in the curtains. He listens to Erwin's breathing until it evens out and steadies as he falls asleep, and he focuses on that.

Levi takes over two hours to fall asleep despite his bone-deep exhaustion, and when he does, he dreams of dirty hands putting him on his stomach and sad, beautiful blue eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all enjoyed this part and are still enjoying this story!
> 
> Levi's personality will probably be different for the next couple of parts, and I talk about that in this part : withdrawals. 
> 
> I've done a lot of research into cocaine and ecstasy use, about their side effects, duration, withdrawal symptoms and when withdrawals start (did you know cocaine withdrawals can start 90 minutes after a dose?) and the effects of mixing the two, so all of that'll be included in these next couple parts. If anyone's curious about them so you know exactly what Levi'll face, comment and I'll tell you!


	12. Eleven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are the main effects of withdrawals from cocaine and ecstasy, just so you guys know somewhat what to expect to see from Levi coming up. 
> 
> Effects of cocaine withdrawals: difficulty concentrating, exhaustion, restlessness, inability to feel pleasure, anxiety and/or depression, suicidal thoughts or actions, vivid, unpleasant dreams and/or nightmares, physical symptoms like chills, tremors, muscle or nerve pain.
> 
> Effects of ecstasy withdrawal: depression, anxiety, irritibility, insomnia, attention/memory issues, hostility, mood swings, paranoia, lack of motor control, mental confusion, panic attacks, depersonalisation, psychosis, delusions and/or hallucinations.

The bed is empty when he wakes up but he can hear Erwin in the living room, walking around. He notices how horrible he feels a moment after realising Erwin isn’t in bed. He feels cold and his body shakes with small tremors, and he can still feel hands roaming over his body from his dream. If he concentrates enough, he can hear mens voices calling him pretty.

He stays in bed for a while longer, eyes slipping closed from exhaustion but sleep dancing just out of his reach. He fists the bedsheets and holds them to his chest, and listens to Erwin in the living room. It’s too dark in the room for him to read the time on the clock.

At some point – time slips out of his grasp easily – Erwin comes into the room with soft footsteps and takes a jacket out of his wardrobe.

“Are you awake, Levi?” He asks, voice quiet, and Levi grunts in response. Erwin wanders over to his side of the bed, crouching slightly. When Levi’s tired eyes focus on him, he sees he’s dressed in a fancy suit and has a bag slung over his shoulder.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like a line of coke would fix everything,” he mutters, and Erwin frowns at him.

“Joking, joking,” he adds quickly, lazily waving a hand dismissively. “I’ll be fine,” he assures him, and Erwin runs his hand from his forehead and through his hair.

“Try and sleep,” Erwin says, and his voice is low and deep and sends shivers down Levi’s spine. “I’ll phone you at lunch and check in, but if you need anything, don’t hesitate to phone me. Okay?”

“Got it,” Levi murmurs, and he leans into Erwin’s soothing touch while it remains. His hand moves down to cup his cheek, the one that used to have a cut over it, and Levi lifts a hand to grip his wrist. They share a silent minute like that, and Levi searches Erwin’s face. Erwin lets him, and he radiates security and confidence, and it relaxes Levi.

Levi lets his wrist go and Erwin drops his hand from his face.

“I’ll be back around five,” he says, “help yourself to anything in the house and any of my clothes if you need them.” He lingers in the room for a moment longer before he leaves. Levi hears the door open and close again a few moments later, and the house is silent save for his own raspy breathing.

He decides to get up, then, and uses the bedframe to get himself in a seating position. His heart pounds against the slight exertion, and he heaves himself to his feet. Feeling clammy and sweaty, he finds his way into Erwin’s joint bathroom and he takes five minutes trying to figure out how to work his large shower. There’s a multitude of different shampoos, conditioners and shaving creams and shower gels, and he only feels slightly too exposed in the large space in the shower, and the hot water heats up his cold skin and washes away all the sweat and grime off of his body. He ignores the way his bones are sharp under his fingertips.

He’s washing shampoo from his hair when he hears a thud, loud and sudden, from a few feet away. He jumps out of his skin and turns around, opening his eyes. In the split second he gets to survey the bathroom before shampoo is assaulting his eyes, he sees that it’s empty. Something flickers behind his reflection in the mirror, and he presses his back against the wet, tiled wall, and tries to breathe. It’s not real, and he knows it. That doesn’t make it any less vivid.

He hurries to finish his shower, rubbing scented body wash off of him with the water and then he steals one of Erwin’s soft black towels to dry off his skin and hair, and he ties it around his hips. There’s nothing in the bathroom but him, and he feels stupid.

He decides to take Erwin up on his clothing offer and he trudges into his large wardrobe, and wrinkles his nose up at all the fancy suits and oxford-shoes. He finds his normal clothes, and decides on a pair of sweatpants that look like an older pair – they’re slightly smaller, too, so they don’t drag as much on the floor when he puts them on – and a jumper. He thinks he might drown in how big his clothes are on him.

When he’s done he makes his way into his living room, and he figures out how to make tea with his fancy machines, and he sits in the living room with it and sips it slowly, trying to get some warmth in his bones.

It snowed overnight and the rooftops of houses and towers are coated in snow, and the windows are covered in frost. It reminds him of Christmas mornings in his apartment, only his were much smaller and looked much different.

If he thinks only of that moment, it makes him feel comfortable and he relaxes with his tea, and enjoys the peace.

The distance from the city pavement and to him on the sixth floor is sickening, and it makes his head spin for a moment. He tips forwards slightly before he catches himself, and hot tea splashes over the rim of the cup and over his fingers. He hardly feels it.

He sets the cup on a coaster on the table and uses a handful of tissues to clean the spilled tea on the floor.

He watches his hands clean it up from far away. He misses it a few times before he cleans it up and puts the tissues away in the rubbish.

Trying to keep up with his own body and mind makes a throbbing appear somewhere in his skull. He sits down and, with concentration he doesn’t have, he begins to look up symptoms of withdrawals. None of them are pleasant, and they make him groan. He puts his phone down (drops it) and finds the TV remote and switches it on.

He doesn’t really pay attention to whatever programme comes on, and he watches as snowflakes twirl outside the large windows and listens to the TV drone on in the background.

He hears the clock in the kitchen get louder and louder until he cringes with each strike of it. His forehead falls until it hits his knees, and there’s a knock at the door. There comes another knock, and another, and then it’s pounding and beating on the door and he thinks it might break in half.

_“Don’t struggle so much, pretty boy. It could be good for ya too, if ya let it be.” Hands on his neck, pulling his hair, smearing drool down his cheek._

_“Ye’re so small,” he chuckles, “cut out for this, aren’t ya, doll?” He pulls Levi’s head away from him and his thumb runs over his swollen lip, and then holds his throat. He presses his bottle of whiskey to Levi’s lips and he doesn’t stop pouring it until Levi chokes and it spills past his lips. “Silly boy,” the man laughs, and Levi watches him with blown pupils._

The memory pops up so suddenly it throws Levi, and if he focuses too hard he can almost feel the whiskey pouring down his chin and feel the mans patronising hand running through his hair. His stomach lurches, and he staggers into a bathroom just in time to throw up yesterdays dinner into the toilet. The banging from the front door moves to the bedroom door, that’s somehow closed, and Levi sits back against the glass of the shower and moans. He can’t see the bedroom door from the bathroom, but he hears it creak open ominously and it’s silent for a moment. He hears large feet push the floorboards down and come closer to the bathroom, and his ribs hurt with the strain his hammering heart and airless lungs are putting on them.

He looks up from his feet, and a few paces away there’s a pair of large feet that look like shadows, and they lead up to long, thin wispy black legs, and by the thighs are clawed fingers. Empty eyes and a muzzle dripping blood faces Levi from seven feet off the ground, and Levi smacks his head back against something as he tries to move back, and black shadows consume him.

 

A phone is ringing somewhere in the distance, but it reaches his ringing ears. He’s on his side on the bathroom floor and his head is pounding furiously, but the phone makes him feel urgent. He uses the sink near him to claw himself to his feet, and his ankle hurts. There’s vomit in the toilet and it makes him gag, and he hurries to flush it.

His phone is face-down on the floor, vibrating and ringing loudly, by the coffee table, and he snatches it up and falls onto the couch. There’s a crack down his screen and he wonders how it got on the floor.

Erwin’s name is on his screen, and he answers the call.

“Hey, Levi,” he greets, and Levi clears his sore throat, “everything alright?”

“Yeah – yeah, everything’s okay,” he replies, and he doesn’t need to see the man to know what his expression is right now.

“Are you sure? I called at the beginning of lunch and you didn’t answer.”

Levi’s cheeks flushed. He can’t remember what happened before he passed out.

“I was asleep, sorry,” he says, and he rubs the bridge of his nose. His head is still spinning and the hairs on the back of his neck are standing up.

“That’s fine. How are you getting on?”

“I’ve seen better days,” Levi retorts, but he feels bad, “I’m fine, Erwin. Lonely and fucking exhausted, but alive.”

Erwin snorts softly. “Four hours, Levi, and I’ll be back. Try to not die until I get back, please?”

“I solemnly swear to try and live,” Levi replies, “now go ‘n’ teach maths, or whatever you teach.”

“English, but close enough.”

“I know.”

“I’ll see you soon, Levi.”

It’s still hard for him to wrap his head around the idea that Erwin doesn’t want anything from him, but he tries to accept that that’s the case. He’d prefer if Erwin was at his throat, yelling and angry rather than his steady composure and confidence which drives Levi mad.

He puts his phone on the coffee table and looks at the TV, which is still on. It’s a news show, but the reporters aren’t talking. They’re standing and staring at the camera – right at him – and their glare grips him and he can’t look away. They mutter about a burglar that’s been going around the area – a few blocks away from Erwin’s house – and then they look at Levi.

“He could even be scoping out your house to see how to get in right this second. Maybe he knows what windows are open or what door he can come in, what fire exit you don’t watch, what door you don’t lock. He could be putting together his bag of tools to break in and make you compliant like putty in his hands. He’s hurt people in their homes before, it’s only a matter of time before he does something drastic, and you might be his next victim.”

Levi checks if the front door is locked – it isn’t, Erwin left it unlocked for him – and he searches until he finds a spare key and he locks it with shaking hands. He peers out the peephole in the door, and an eye stares back at him, and he falls back in surprise. He hears something scrape the other side of the door – the sharp point of a knife – and Levi finds himself back in the bathroom. He looks at the clock before he enters, which says quarter past two – where did the time go? – and he listens to the knife against the door even from the bathroom.

The doorknob twists, and then jingles, and he hears the lock undo and the door open. Levi bites down on his fist to quieten his erratic breathing, and he hears the burglar call his name – _he knows his name, he knows he’s here._

The footsteps come into the bathroom and Levi sees a blurred version of the face reported on the news, and then he blinks and it’s Erwin with his hair combed and his suit on, and he holds Levi’s upper arms and says something that sounds like _breathe, Levi, breathe._

He’s trying, really, but his lungs don’t want to bring air in. He wants to set his forehead down against his knees but Erwin urges him to sit up and it lets his lungs get more air in.

Erwin puts his hand on his wrist and his thumb digs in enough so that he feels Erwin’s pulse – always so steady, so sure – and he feels it, focuses on that instead of thoughts like _the door isn’t locked, you aren’t safe, there’s other people in the house, they’re coming for you, no one will notice if you’re dead._

At some point, he breathes. He does it again and again until he’s breathing more steadily, and his hand still clutches Erwin’s wrist.

“What happened, Levi?” He asks. “The door was locked, and I’m fine with that, but it was a bit odd.”

Levi tilts his head back and a shiver grips his body. “The – the news,” he mutters, and his voice is hoarse, “burglar was coming. I had to lock the door.”

“No one’s been here, Levi,” Erwin assures him, and Levi shakes his head.

“He was at the door,” he states, “I saw him.”

“I would have gotten phoned if there were people looking in,” Erwin says, and Levi closes his eyes. A part of him knows that he’s being completely delusional and nothing ever happened – hell, a few minutes ago it was two pm, and now Erwin’s home at five – but there’s another part of _what if…_ He could still be out there, memorising what time Erwin’s out, when Levi’s home alone, detoxing, vulnerable. The idea makes his hands shake.

“If he was there, there’d be something, right? The handle would have moved, there would be prints on the floor because it’s been snowing all day, right?”

He’s being talked to like a child, and Levi glares at him. “Of course.”

“Then let’s check.”

Erwin helps Levi to his feet, and they walk to the door. Erwin opens the door, and Levi looks around. Other than Erwin, it doesn’t look like anyone’s been around. Levi remembers the knife scraping it, and he turns to inspect the door. It’s as clean as ever, the wood untouched, and Levi’s chest tightens. He feels crazy, and he rubs his eyes with the heels of his hand. Erwin rests a hand on Levi’s shoulder and he guides him back inside, closing and locking the door behind them.

“Have you eaten?” His stomach lurches, and he remembers when he threw up. He is hungry, but he isn’t sure he can keep anything down, so he tells Erwin that.

“That’s fine,” he says, and his hand is still on his back. “What have you done today?” He asks, and they sit down on the couch. He sees his untouched tea from hours ago still there, and his phone is on the floor again.

God knows what he’s done today. “Slept,” he says, instead, because he feels exhausted but too on edge to actually sleep, and Erwin nods. He changes the TV channel to a Christmas movie, and he makes some tea and coffee for them. Levi only occasionally sips at it before he sets it down and forgets about it, and time slips away from him until Erwin brings him back with a hand on his knee.

“It’s late,” he comments, and Levi blinks a few times, “I’m going to sleep now. You can stay up if you want, but I think you should get some sleep now.”

Levi wants to agree, but he can already see sleep dancing just out of reach of his fingertips, taunting his exhausted bones. Nonetheless, he takes Erwin’s hand and follows him into the bedroom. He collapses into bed while Erwin changes, and he pulls blankets over his thin body. Erwin gets in quietly, and neither of them speak about what happened yesterday, or the spilled tea on the floor, or the way Levi flinches from noises only he catches.

He dreams that Erwin finds him during an overdose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed it! If you ever want to talk to me more directly, my tumblr is @ killerrs-queen.


	13. Twelve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look, another chapter!

_Glass digs into the skin on his back, and there’s a rock digging uncomfortably into his spine, but he can’t move even if he wanted to. The ceiling above him is out of focus and dark, and the only time he can actually see is when a car drives past and its headlights shine in through the windows. Horrible wheezing noises come from his chapped lips each time he tries to drag in oxygen, but he barely gasps it in before it’s lost again. He manages to only bring in enough oxygen to keep his lungs from burning enough to reach him through the haze. Each time his heart skips a beat his body twitches or seizes or convulses in response, and it makes more little shards of glass and stones dig into his skin again._

_His body thrums with energy and he hears his blood rush in his ears and he feels his heart hammer his ribcage into pieces, and he can’t stand up. He tries, but he blacks out and when he wakes up everything hurts and he tastes blood. His arm is twisted under his arm, and despite all of that, he feels amazing. There’s a detachment between the him that’s in pain and seizing on the floor of some crack house, and the him that’s floating somewhere miles off._

_He can’t breathe for too long and the side of his face hits the messy ground and he chokes out vomit, but it’s okay. That’s not really him._

_Blue eyes look down at him, and Levi smiles at Erwin. He wonders if he feels as good as he does, but he looks horrified and urgent. He can’t hear what he’s saying, though, and he tries to say, “relax, Erwin. Everything’s great,” but then he moans and arches his back as his muscles contract. Hands on his body bring him down from the clouds and everything hits him – he can’t breathe, can’t move, can’t talk. His arms, chest, neck and jaw are all in searing pain and the sound of his own blood in his ears is deafening. His stomach twists and he pushes the back of his head into the stones and glass and dirt as something spills past his lips, back down his throat, into his lungs._

_Hands on his cheeks and he’s looking at Erwin, with large, blue eyes that look like the ocean, Erwin who’s always so composed, so confident, who’s yelling at him, yelling to the side, talking rapidly into the phone held between his cheek and his shoulder._

_Levi tries to reach up and grip his wrist, but when he moves his arm it brings a wave of pain, and he panics. He doesn’t feel good anymore, and he doesn’t know where he is or what’s happening, but everything hurts and Erwin’s panicking, and he’s scared._

_“It’s okay, Levi, just look at me – look at me, Levi.” His hands are moving him onto his side and the movement disorientates him. He feels like he’s falling, and he tries to catch himself but his body doesn’t listen and then he’s choking and his eyes are rolling back again. He stops listening to Erwin yelling and stops feeling hands trying to hold him down so he doesn’t hurt himself, and he instead tries to grab his hand. He isn’t sure if it works, because he can’t even see straight._

_“’m f’n, ‘rwin… Don’- don’ w’rry.”_

_Erwin holds his wrist and he’s fine, he’s fine, and he chokes on the fluid in his lungs as Erwin gets pulled away by too-late paramedics who determine him dead by overdose at two-twenty-nine AM._

Levi lurches awake, sweating and shaking, and bile floods his throat. He scrambles off the edge of Erwin’s bed, alive, alive, and into his bathroom, the feeling of choking making him claw the toilet and violently expel everything from his stomach.

A few moments later and Erwin’s fingers smooth his hair back and rub between his shoulder blades. He’s calm, a little startled if anything, but he isn’t yelling and there’s no blue and red lights or glass in his back and cheeks and he’s alive, alive.

“Want to talk about it?” He asks, and Levi shakes his head. The movement makes him dizzy and he retches into the toilet again.

His muscles and every individual nerve sings with pain, and he closes his eyes miserably and rests his sweaty forehead against his forearm. He doesn’t want to do this anymore, and he knows he can walk for just a little while and find the dealers on any other alley and it can all go away.

He thinks of Erwin, of Erwin’s hands on his cheek and Erwin yelling and Erwin panicking as he convulses on the filthy floor beneath him.

He vomits again, and he feels tears fall from the corners of his eyes at the strain.

“Take it easy, Levi, relax.” Erwin’s fingers rub his shoulders gently and run through his hair.

_“Just look at me – look at me, Levi.”_

He moans miserably and closes his eyes. “I can’t do this,” he mutters, “I can’t do this, Erwin.”

He hears Erwin’s knees cracks as he crouches next to Levi on the cold bathroom floor, and he pulls him away from the toilet, closes the lid and flushes it, and rubs Levi’s back.

“What did you dream of?” Erwin asks, and it startles him slightly, the shift in topic. His throat tightens, and he grimaces.

“I was in some – some crack house,” he breathes, “and you were there. I was… I was dying, and you couldn’t save me. I died from an overdose.”

He doesn’t want that. The vivid memory of it strikes fear in him like a vice around his heart, and he doesn’t want that. But part of him thinks it would be easier.

“I don’t want to die like that,” he breathes, and Erwin pushes his hair back from his face.

“And you won’t,” he says, always so confident, “it’s just for a little longer, and you’re doing so well, Levi.”

“It’s not a little longer!” Levi chokes. “There’s still days or weeks or _months,_ Erwin.” The idea of being like this for more than another couple of days, let alone over a month, sends his lungs gasping for air. He runs his hands through his hair and tugs at the dark strands.

Erwin hushes his name and sits in front of him. One hand cups the side of his neck, his fingers brushing his jaw, and the other goes over Levi’s trembling hand. He moves Levi’s hand so it cups the side of his neck, and he holds it there.

“Listen to me, Levi. Look at me.” Levi hiccups and his lip trembles pathetically, but he does.

“You are going to do this, Levi. And I’m going to be by your side for it all, and it’ll all be over soon. I can’t do this for you, but I’ll be there for whatever you need.”

Levi ducks his head, bangs falling over his eyes. Instinctively he goes to wrap his arms around himself, but Erwin doesn’t let go of his hand. Instead, he pulls Levi, gently, into his side, and his long arms wrap around Levi’s torso firmly, and he grips his upper arms and falls back against his chest.

“Okay?” His breath arms the shell of his ear, and it sends a shiver down his spine.

Levi nods weakly.

“Say it,” Erwin urges, “say that you’ll do it. That you’ll make it.”

Levi fingers press into his Erwin’s toned arms. “I’ll – I’ll do it,” he whispers, but it doesn’t sound convincing to his ears, “I’ll make it.”

“You will,” Erwin says with more confidence than Levi has. But he trusts Erwin.

Erwin helps him to his feet, and he gets him a drink of water and gets him to clean his mouth out, and then they get back into his bed. Levi sees the clock saying that it’s just earlier than three in the morning, and then Erwin guides him into the comfort of his bed.

“Go to sleep, Levi,” he murmurs, and he doesn’t close his eyes. He doesn’t want to.

Erwin drapes an arm over his side and pulls him to his chest.

“I’m here. Go to sleep.”

Levi rests his hand over Erwin’s, and Erwin lets him sink his fingers between his. He sleeps eventually, and it’s still restless, but he doesn’t dream about strangers hands or dying again.

 

When he wakes up again, Erwin is still there, with his arm over Levi’s chest and his forehead brushing Levi’s neck. It takes Levi a moment to realise that Erwin’s awake, though, and when Levi stirs Erwin untangles himself from him to let him sit up.

He takes a moment to steady himself and all the memories of last night, but he collects himself shortly and looks around. Light filters in through the window and the clock tells him its half nine.

He’s tired and groggy but he still jumps and faces Erwin.

“You’re – you’re late for work,” he stammers, and Erwin flashes a grin.

“I called in sick,” he states, and Levi stares at him.

“Why?”

“I was tired,” he shrugs, and Levi fixes him with a look calling him out on his bullshit. “And I thought you might like some company for the day.”

Levi falls back onto the bed. “You’re going to regret that decision,” he says, and Erwin shakes his head.

“No, I don’t think I will.”

Erwin lets him wake up and ground himself slowly while he makes breakfast – the idea makes his stomach churn, but Erwin tells him he needs to eat something and it’ll help him. He borrows more of Erwin’s clothing again – he says they can go shopping for him when he’s better – and then he sits in the living room, watching the rain outside the window, with a blanket around his shoulders.

He feels like a child again, ill from school, and waiting on his mother to make him some soup and put on a kids film for him. Only he feels much worse.

Erwin gives him some tea and his fingers brush across his and linger for a moment, and then he’s back in the kitchen and making something easy for his stomach. He brings it over, and it’s just two pieces of buttered toast, and Levi murmurs a thank you to him. He puts on something on Netflix and they eat quietly. Erwin sits close enough that his thigh presses against Levi’s.

They talk quietly. Erwin tells him about his family and living in Germany and how he might go see them during one of the upcoming holidays, and Levi tells him about living in France. He can’t help but smile fondly when he tells him about how he used to perform violin and piano and played in competitions. It feels like it’s been ages since he last picked up a bow or tickled the ivories of a piano, and he longs for it again.

“I’ve not given you a proper tour of the house,” Erwin comments, and Levi nods. He only knows where the living room, kitchen, Erwin’s bedroom and bathroom is, but he knows the place is much bigger.

“While I’d love to have a tour,” Levi says, and he sets down his plate on the coffee table – he only managed one piece of toast, “I don’t think I’d manage a full one.”

Erwin also places hid dishes down, and then he offers Levi a hand. “There’s one room I want to show you. I never really use it, but you might.” It catches Levi’s interest, and he heaves himself to his feet with Erwin’s help, and he follows him closely through a door.

It opens up to a fair sized office kind of room, a large desk and computer at one end near a large bookcase, and there’s a record player on another desk. But, to one end, next to the window, is a small, unused piano that mostly seems to be used as a shelf for the flowers and pictures on it. Levi opens the cover to reveal dusty keys, and he sits on the stool in front of it while Erwin stands over his shoulder and watches him dust off the keys.

“You couldn’t have told me sooner?” He asks sarcastically.

Erwin chuckles, and rests a hand on his slim shoulder. “Like I said, I don’t use it much.”

He presses the keys one by one, and then he sets them down on specific keys, and plays. He’s rusty, and his shaking fingers mess up a few notes, but he plays it and gets lost in the music that comes from his fingertips. Erwin’s thumb rubs his shoulder gently, and he watches his slim fingers dance along the keys.

He stops suddenly, mid-song, and he takes his dusty fingertips off the keys. “Thank you,” he says, and Erwin doesn’t ask why. He just squeezes his hand in return when Levi takes his, and they go back to the living room.

Levi wraps himself in a blanket and pretends to watch the film. Erwin wanders around as he cleans up and showers, and he sits next to Levi and writes students reports. Levi drifts in and out of awareness, the film becoming a quiet buzz in the back of his mind. He listens, instead, to the drip, drip, drip of water from the tap in the kitchen and the rustle of paper coming from Erwin to his right, and the scrape of a pen on the paper.

He lets the wave of confusion take him for some indeterminate amount of time and only comes back around when Erwin appears in front of him and his hand waves in front of his eyes. He blinks him into focus and murmurs an apology, and Erwin just asks if he’s alright, which he is. He just forgets what’s going on sometimes, and he’s dealing with that.

There’s still the ever present ache in his organs and the marrow of his bones and behind his eyes, and occasionally the ache rises and his muscles cramp. Every time that happens he freezes, fearing the time they’ll contract and convulse, but it doesn’t come. He lets Erwin, at some point, pull him down so he’s laying with his head on his thighs, and he watches the blurs on the TV move around and speak in static buzzes while the blonde man above him combs his fingers through his hair, and down his back, over his arms. He murmurs something against his ear that he can’t understand, but he closes his eyes and sinks against him.

He can’t remember why he feels like this, but the man above him radiates confidence and security and his soothing fingers lull him into a state of unconsciousness that takes away the pain in his body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love hearing your guys's feedback and opinions, so please let me know what you're thinking of it!


	14. Thirteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back at it again. Thank you all so much for 1000+ reads and 100 kudos, I hope you all like this!

_He dreams that Erwin melts into the faces of men that drive up to him on the corner. He dreams that Erwin never met him in the alley that day, but instead on the corner of a sketchy street, suit and hair askew and messy, eyes lined with stress and looking for a quick outlet. He dreams that Erwin is just another nameless face with beautiful eyes that roam his naked body, with hands that unravel him completely and beautifully, hands that tug his hair, of lips that taste and devour him and moan into Levi’s neck, and a body that covers Levi’s. He dreams that his blue eyes watch Levi’s blown grey ones with a hint of concern and regret, but then he drops him off and Levi only sees him again for an hour at a time and he’s too high to remember his own name, and then he never sees Erwin again._

Levi wakes up with his head on Erwin’s lap, and Erwin himself is asleep with his hand in Levi’s hair, and no doubt a horrible crick in his neck. The next thing he notices is the crippling anxiety gripping him so hard that his breathing stutters when he wakes up. He looks up at Erwin’s peaceful face, remembers it looking down at him from over his shoulder in the backseat of his car, and he sits up. His arms shake and his chest aches, and it steals air out of his lungs, but he does it and immediately gets to his feet while trying not to wake Erwin up.

The blonde stirs slightly, but he must have also been tired as he doesn’t move any further.

He makes his way to the kitchen and searches until he finds a glass, and he pours himself some water and uses some kitchen roll to dry what his shaking hands spill, and he downs it. It grates his throat and he almost misses when he sets it down when it sends him into a rough coughing fit, and he feels light headed.

He uses the counter to balance himself, gripping it tightly until he can properly feel his limbs and fingers again. The ticking clock in the kitchen says it’s only nearing five of the same day, and the clock rings in his ears loudly. He cringes and stumbles out of the kitchen, and past Erwin. He’s slumped to the side and his chin touches his chest which rises and falls gently. Levi can’t help but reach out and run his trembling fingers through his soft blonde locks and smooth it out of his face. Erwin twitches, and slowly he blinks his eyes open and looks up at Levi. He searches his face for a moment before he reaches up and takes Levi’s hand out of his hair, and brings it to his mouth instead. His breaths ghosts over his cold skin, and then he tugs Levi down to the seat. Levi slots in beside him, but Erwin pulls him closer and onto his lap as if he weighs nothing, and his arms wrap around his trembling body and hold him close.

“What time is it?” He asks, and Levi sinks against his chest, feels warmth radiate off of him. Around him Erwin manoeuvers to pull the old throw blanket over the two of them, and he tucks his head in the crook of Levi’s neck.

“It’s just – just coming to five,” He says, and Erwin hums against his neck.

“You’re cold,” he comments, and Levi grunts.

“Somewhat obvious.”

“Is this helping?”

Levi thinks, and he forces hesitation out of his body to relax against Erwin’s. With Erwin’s body heat and the blanket around them he already feels slightly warmer, and he wraps his arms around the blondes’ torso to bring them closer, only doing so since Erwin already initiated similar contact.

“I guess,” he murmurs, and he feels Erwin’s lips twitch. His body twitches against Erwin’s, fingers flexing in his loose shirt, and Erwin soothes his hands down his back, along his waist. Levi thinks of the kiss however-many weeks ago, and he rolls the moment in his memory as Erwin’s breath brushes his ear.

“I’ll have to work tomorrow,” he says, and Levi sighs into his chest. “Will you be okay?”

He compares yesterday to today. He’s not had any major hallucinations, he’s slept, and he’s eaten something. He only feels worse now, when he’s woken up again and his heart still beats too fast and he’s on edge.

“I’ll be fine,” he replies, and he feels Erwin looking at him dubiously. He digs his fingers into his back in response, and when Erwin moves his head his teeth graze Levi’s skin and sends ice down his spine.

Erwin shifts slightly and Levi goes with him, but he turns his head to the side to cough, his chest aching, and he keeps his face turned away from Erwin politely, but Erwin hooks his fingers under his chin.

“Your immune system really took a beating,” he comments quietly, and Levi doesn’t need to respond. Erwin’s fingers tap his jaw, and his eyes flick from his pale lips and back to his tired eyes.

“I’ll see about getting some antibiotics. The last thing we need is you coming down with the flu on top of all of this.” Levi thinks he’d appreciate that. He’s had a cough and a sore chest for a while, but he’s had more important things to tend to before that.

“When I first came back to your house,” Levi says, “you said I was looking for a sugar daddy. I think you’re fitting that role,” he states, and Erwin snorts.

“Well, if you ever want to brag about having a sugar daddy, I’ll pretend to be that for you,” he says, and Levi’s lips twitch.

“As comfortable as I am,” Erwin continues, “I think I’m just going to order food for us tonight. I’ll cook something real soon, I promise, but I don’t particularly want to do that tonight. I’ll go out to grab it and get those antibiotics, how’s that sound?”

Levi shrugs carelessly – he doesn’t really care what’s for dinner, as long as he doesn’t end up throwing it back up. “Sure.”

Erwin fumbles for his phone with Levi being no help on his lap, and then he rings up whatever takeaway he decides they should have and he places their order for pick up, and he waits another ten minutes before he begins to pry Levi off of him, who was content in stealing his body heat and falling into a semi-aware trance.

“I’ll be back in half an hour or so,” he assures him, and Levi stares at him and grunts in acknowledgement. Erwin taps his cheek and raises an eyebrow at him, and Levi swallows dryly.

“Okay,” he says, verbally acknowledging him, and Erwin seems more satisfied.

“Try not to miss me too much,” Erwin says, and Levi snorts and flicks his hand, still on his cheek. He slumps into his sofa and when his eyes flutter closed for a moment, Erwin briefly replaces his hand on his cheek with his lips. Levi tilts his head into the brief touch, and then he’s gone and he hears Erwin leave the apartment and lock the door behind him.

Levi lingers on the sofa, fixing the blanket back over him, and he watches the current show on TV for probably fifteen minutes before he sits up. He stretches his arms above his head and his legs out along the floor. He could, at least, bring some plates and cutlery out for Erwin he decides, while he feels more in tune with reality today.

He steps into the kitchen, feet dragging on the floor, and he searches for the plates. He finds them tucked away in a drawer, and when he stands up with two in his hands he almost tips back as a wave of dizziness hits him. Thinking fast he puts the fragile plates on the counter and grips it with white knuckles and a stomach churning with nausea. He goes towards one of the barstools at the island in the kitchen, but before he can reach it his knees hit the ground, and the ground turns black.

 

He stirs a handful of minutes later to a throbbing pain in his knees and his shoulder, and he’s extremely disorientated before he realises he’s on the floor of Erwin’s kitchen. He couldn’t have been out for too long because Erwin isn’t back yet with their food, and so he heaves himself, slowly, back onto his hands and knees, and uses the counter to get to his shaking feet. His stomach flips and he swallows dryly against the action, but nothing further happens. He sits on one of the barstools quickly and cradles his head in his hands until he doesn’t feel like he’s falling.

He takes his time to carefully continue setting out cutlery and plates on the island – though it takes him longer to find them – and then he pours himself some water and sits at the island. His lungs pull air in like it’s a chore, and he has to pace himself from drinking and breathing.

He jumps when the door handle jingles and it unlocks, but he relaxes when Erwin comes in and kicks his shoes off, two bags in one hand. He startles upon not seeing Levi in the living room, but smiles at him when he notices him sitting in the kitchen.

“Thank you,” he says, gesturing to the plates, and Levi just shrugs. Erwin places the bags on the island and rounds so he’s standing behind Levi, and his hands rest on Levi’s shoulders, his chin on Levi’s head.

“You’re paler than when I left,” he comments. Levi presses his lips together and glances at his hands on him.

“Ever thought about a job being a spy?” He retorts sarcastically, and Erwin just grins against his hair.

“How are you feeling?” He asks instead, and Levi drums his fingers on the wooden counter.

“Dizzy,” he admits eventually, and Erwin hums.

“You’ve not eaten much lately,” he points out, and he slides off of him to go back to the food, which turns out to be sushi. Levi’s never had sushi, but the smell coming from it makes his nose twitch curiously. Erwin puts them out on plates with a set of wooden chopsticks and pours two glasses of juice for them, and then he sits on the stool next to Levi.

“Have you ever had sushi before?” He asks, and Levi looks at the chopsticks in his hand and shakes his head.

“Never?” Erwin raises an eyebrow, and Levi’s lips twitch as he shakes his head once more. “Here.” Erwin sets his own chopsticks on the island next to his plate and he leans over, taking Levi’s set and his hand. Levi watches his hand over his, fixing the chopsticks into their correct position in his hand. His hand is pleasantly warm over his, and his touch is gentle and focused until the chopsticks settle in his hands properly, and then his hand is gone and Levi feels cold again.

He goes for one of the pieces with cucumber wrapped in rice, the ones with raw fish looking less appetising at the moment, and then he places it between his teeth and bites a bit off. It has a nice taste but a slightly odd texture and consistency in his mouth, but his stomach doesn’t protest it more than it protests anything.

He eats that piece slowly and goes for another similar one, and Erwin starts a conversation about music, and Levi feels he can finally contribute something to it.

“You used to perform?” Erwin brings up, and Levi nods, swallows a bit of sushi down.

“Yeah – I’ve played in The Arsenal, Opéra national de Lorraine, La Sainte Chapelle. I played, once, in the Toulon Opéra, and that…” He remembers that day clearly, when he had stood on the stage in front of a full hall and played several sonatas and had a pianist accompany him for some, while other numbers he stood there by himself, the sole focus of hundreds of eyes, at seventeen. It was one of his greatest achievements. “Was amazing. It was unreal to stand on that stage.” He shakes his head softly, and Erwin smiles at him.

“I bet it was amazing to hear.”

“I used to have a copy of it,” he said, his lips twitching down, “but it’s probably in the back of some box in her apartment, now. I would have shown it to you, if I had it.”

“Well,” Erwin says, “one day you’ll just have to do it live for me.”

Levi snorts softly, but he nods. “Sure,” he agrees, and Erwin just smiles at him.

They talk for a while more before putting their dishes away and moving to the sofa, and Levi’s head spins. Erwin comes over with a bag in his hands, and Levi recognises it from a pharmacy.

“It’s just a little to help with the cough just now,” he says, opening it and pulling a little bottle of cough syrup with a child-lock cap on it, and there’s a tea spoon in his other hand. “If it gets worse then I’ll take you to the doctors.”

Levi just nods and holds his hand out for the medicine, but Erwin opens it himself and pours it onto the spoon.

“I’m not a fucking child,” he says, and Erwin inclines his head slightly.

“If I’m your sugar daddy, then I get to treat you like my sugar baby,” he states, and Levi scoffs.

“You’re a cunt, Erwin,” he says, and Erwin just smiles and rests his hand on his neck, thumb brushing his jaw, fingers brushing the nape of his neck.

“I know,” he says, and then he holds the spoon near his lips and Levi eats it off the spoon. Erwin’s eyes watch his mouth with a glint of something, but then he puts the lid on the bottle and sets the bottle and spoon down.

“I think you get off on my vulnerability,” Levi comments, and Erwin flashes him a grin.

“And what would you do if I did?” He says, an eyebrow raised, and Levi hits him.

“I’ll find another damn sugar daddy that lets me have a smoke,” he mutters, and Erwin’s hand finds Levi’s.

“You’ll thank me,” he says, and Levi hums.

“I wouldn’t hold your breath,” he mutters, but Erwin just wears that cocky smile, and Levi holds himself back from hitting him. He slumps, turns his eyes to the TV, and they fall into silence as the movie plays. It’s _A Christmas Carol_ Levi notices, and he watches it, eyes half-lidded, with Erwin’s arm over his shoulders.

He’s half falling asleep, body exhausted and the ingredients in the cough syrup helping to relax him and ease the pain in his chest, and he hears Erwin’s strong heartbeat under his ear, when there’s something else. Someone saying his name, quietly, until it gets louder and louder. The faces on the TV, angry and eyeless, stare at Levi and he startles awake, his breathing catching in his throat. Erwin’s hands rub circles on his shoulders.

He watches the ghost of Christmas yet-to-come raise a shadow finger at him. He closes his eyes, but the images flash against his eyelids. Erwin, getting fed up with him. Erwin, kicking him out. The cold and damp from the streets seep into his bones again, and he watches himself walk back to the drug den, watches himself lay on his back to pay for more cocaine, watches himself accept a thin syringe of something new, something more, and he watches his veins collapse and watches himself seize in the corner of a crack house and go back for more.

Levi gasps for air and Erwin sits him upright, blocks his view of the accusing figure on the TV, and holds his head up with fingers under his jaw, tells him to breathe, breathe, and he tries but air dances just out of his reach and with the stars that bounce into view.

He would never do heroin, never. But he’d said that about cocaine, too, and ecstasy, and prostitution. His hand ducks under Erwin’s jumper that he’s wearing and scratches his chest, pulls his skin and tries to breathe, but Erwin pulls his hand away and places it against his own.

He _would_ do heroin. God, he’d do anything for a high and make all of this stop, except for disappoint Erwin apparently, because he’s the only thing standing in his way, and he beats his fist against Erwin’s sturdy chest and wishes he’d never met the man.

But Erwin doesn’t let him go until he breathes again, and even then he still doesn’t let go, and his forehead hits his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” Levi wheezes, and Erwin’s fingers comb his hair, “I’m sorry.”

“Shh, Levi. Everything’ll be alright,” Erwin replies, and Levi trusts him.

Levi tries not to think about how quickly his life came to this, and he listens to Erwin murmur in German by his ear.


	15. Fourteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure if it's sad or awesome how much I've written aha, like it's been around a week and I've written 30K+ words for this. 
> 
> But I'm not stopping, so here's another 2.6K words!
> 
> I enjoy writing as some kind of outlet for me and what I'm going through, and it's nice to see that a lot of people can read it and feel the emotions follow through to them.

They don’t do much for the rest of the day. Erwin turns the film off and instead music fills the room – gentle orchestra music that Levi can pick apart and hear all the instruments meld together beautifully – and Erwin soothes him with a hand in his hair and stories in German. Levi wouldn’t have processed them if they were in English anyway, but German rolls off Erwin’s tongue more naturally and it sounds better in his voice than English. At some point he does fall asleep, his head on his lap, and he half-wakes up to the feeling of being moved with an arm under his knees and across his back. It’s embarrassing, how easily Erwin can lift and carry him around, but he doesn’t argue as Erwin puts him down on his bed and messes around in his wardrobe and bathroom, and when he lays down behind him and puts an arm around him it chases the shadows staring at him from out of the window away.

Levi falls back down, down, down, and lets Erwin hold him.

 

He doesn’t remember what he dreamt, if anything, that night, and he wakes up when Erwin begins to move behind him, carefully pulling his arm off of him. He listens to the shower run and then listens to him pull a suit on and sort his bag out. He hears the coffee machine run and Erwin cooking himself some breakfast, and he hears the TV buzz on and drone quietly in the background. He doesn’t try to get up, his body feeling heavy and his eyelids are hard enough to pry open.

The TV flickers off and Erwin loads the dishwasher, and then his shoes click on the floor until he reaches Levi’s side of the bed. His fingers find his hair again and brush it out of his face, and then he murmurs something, possibly in German, that doesn’t quite reach his ears. His lips brush Levi’s cheeks and he forces himself to move; his hand clasps the back of his neck and holds him close, and he opens his eyes to see him hardly an inch from his face.

He tips his head up, then, ghosts his lips over Erwin’s. Beneath his fingers he can feel his heartbeat elevate, and then he catches Erwin’s lips with his own. It’s hesitant and gentle, and Erwin’s fingers spread across his cheek. Levi tries to lean closer, desperately seeks something more, but Erwin pulls back.

“I’ll be back soon,” he says, and he lingers for only a brief moment before he begins to walk to the door. He pauses in the doorway and glances back at Levi.

“Don’t forget your medicine. I’ll phone at lunch.”

Levi hears the door click and lock a few moments later, and the apartment feels empty without his presence.

He lets his eyes close and doesn’t fall back asleep.

Eventually, he decides that he doesn’t like the sweat and grime on his skin and he pulls himself to his feet, trudging into Erwin’s bathroom. There’s still a little bit of steam on the mirror from Erwin’s shower and the air is warm and heavy and it irritates his lungs slightly, but he strips down and drags himself into the shower. The movement drains his energy and he leans against the wall as hot water rains down on him, dripping down the contours of his body. He half-heartedly washes his hair and his body, and he has to pause to lean against the wall when his head spins.

But his hair is clean and his body smells like honey, so he dries himself off and throws on a pair of Erwin’s sweatpants and puts the rest of his washing into his basket.

He finds the bottle of cough syrup with a tea spoon next to it on the island in the kitchen, and he fumbles to get the lid off and pour it. He looks over the ingredients in it as he takes it. He doesn’t recognise half of it, though, and he puts it back down and he leans against the counter, rubbing his eyes. He feels oddly numb, today, and it’s a shock to his system after days of hypersensitivity and sensory overload. Instead, reality slips just out of his grasp easily, and he has to focus on staying aware.

He leaves the kitchen, recalling what way he’d followed Erwin the day before, and he finds his way back into the office and to the hardly-touched piano. His fingers tickle along the surface of the keys and then he presses down. The sound rings out along the empty apartment, and he does it again, changes the keys, presses, and does it until a song comes from his fingertips. He presses the keys more violently, puts more pressure behind his shaking fingertips until it steals his breath away and he leans against the keys with a crash of notes and his chest heaves.

His forehead dips down and he catches it in his trembling hands, breathes in deeply and coughs, and fights himself for air. He once had a life, and when he thinks about it, it seems like it’s fake. He can’t imagine seeing himself married with his own home or a job again, he can’t imagine himself being a normal functioning person, can’t see himself walking into a shop and buying clothes because he can, can’t see himself sitting on a piano stool or standing with his violin in front of impressed eyes, ever again. He can’t see himself kissing the knuckles of someone who wears his ring, can’t image them talking about families, about children. He can’t see anything past vomiting and shaking and either being crippled by withdrawals or giving in and dying in an alley.

That happened in less than a year.

His fingers pull his hair, tug it painfully, and his throat hurts. The piano in front of him taunts him, reminds him of when he was alive, and he wonders what everyone would think of him now. His childhood friends whom he’d lost a lot of contact with when he lost his house, Isabel and Farlan, or what she would think of him now. He almost wants to find her number in his phone and call her up, see how she’s doing, but the idea makes him hurt more. Half of him never wants to hear her voice again, never see her face again.

He composes himself eventually, annoyed at himself for being so emotional, and he leaves the laughing piano behind in that room.

He sits on the couch in the living room and waits for lunch to come.

The phone call jolts him out of his daze and he hurries to sweep his phone off the floor and answer it.

“How’s it going?” Erwin asks him, and his voice washes over him and he can practically feel Erwin’s fingers comb through his hair as he speaks.

“I’m fine,” he says, voice dry, and Erwin hums questioningly. “Tired,” he adds, then, and he hears Erwin shuffle with something.

“All the kids are curious about who you are,” he comments, and Levi raises an eyebrow.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. They called me out for not being sick, so now they think me and someone got drunk and they heavily implied sexual things I can’t repeat in a school zone, and was too hungover to come into work.”

Levi snorts, rests his chin on his cheek. “They’ve found you out, Smith,” he says, and the blonde laughs.

“They’re clever,” he admits, and Levi listens to Erwin go on about his morning lessons and a student that always causes him grief every class, until he hears him sigh.

“I’ll have to go, lunch is finishing in five minutes,” he says, sounding genuinely upset and irritated, and Levi’s lips twitch.

“Don’t miss me too much,” he says, and he hears him scoff on the other end of the line.

“I’ll try,” he assures him, and then, “I’ll see you tonight, Rivaille.” The name rolls off his tongue and down his spine, and Levi’s eyes close.

“Oui, Irvin,” he says, and Erwin is quiet for a moment.

“Auf wiedersehen, Rivaille.”

The phone call finishes there, and Levi turns his phone off, sets it on the coffee table. He pulls his knees to his chest and sets his chin on his knees. Outside the window he can see storm clouds rolling in the background, and far off he can see flashes of light. He watches them get closer and closer until rain batters the window and thunder claps in his ears, and he does nothing else.

 

When the door unlocks and opens, Levi startles out of his daze. He looks around, disorientated, to find Erwin walking in and kicking off his shoes. His hair is slightly wet from the rain outside, but it’s mostly on the hood of his coat.

Levi blinks confusion away and turns to face him as he comes in, bones cracking, and Erwin smiles at him.

“Do much?” He asks, and Levi shakes his head.

“Tired,” he repeats, and Erwin nods. He rounds Levi, ruffles his hair on his way into the kitchen, and Levi swats after his hand.

“So, Mr Smith,” he says, tilting his head back to look at Erwin making coffee, “your students think your old-ass got some action.” His lips twitch up mischievously, and Erwin looks at him with exasperation.

“Don’t even do that,” he says, and Levi smirks.

“Did they ask how it was? Ask my name?”

“Levi,” Erwin moans, and he tilts his head to the side.

“Not what I thought you’d moan like, but,” he shrugs, and Erwin closes his eyes, shakes his head.

“I already went through two hours of this, please,” he says, and Levi closes his eyes, tilts his head down so his forehead rests on his arms.

Erwin works around in the kitchen for a while longer before setting tea for Levi and coffee for himself on the coffee table, and then orchestra music fills the silence once more and his fingers drum in time with it on his upper arm.

“Do you like pasta?” He asks, and Levi hums and then nods.

“If it’s good,” he says, and Erwin’s thigh brushes Levi’s, and then his hand rests on it while his other messes with papers from work.

They sit like that for a while, Levi listening to the music floating from the speaker in the living room while Erwin marks papers. His fingers rub his thigh in circles.

His eyes crack open when a phone rings, and Erwin glances back at him. “It’s yours,” he says, and Levi’s eyebrows furrow. He takes it from his hand and looks at the caller ID on it, and his fingers freeze.

Erwin glances back at him, and then at his phone. “Don’t answer it if you don’t want to,” he says, and Levi thinks of all the ways the world has screwed him over.

He accepts the call.

“Rivaille? Hey, it’s – it’s me.”

“It’s Levi,” he corrects quickly. Erwin’s hand runs through his hair, and he leans into the touch.

“Levi, right,” there’s an awkward silence and he doesn’t bother trying to correct them. “How have you been? I keep meaning to check in with you, but… Yeah.”

Starving, abuse, homelessness, drugs, an overdose, sucking strangers off to overdose again.

Erwin touches his neck.

“I’ve been fine,” he says, and his stomach turns. “And you?”

She laughs a little. “It’s been weird without you – “

“If you’re trying to fix things now,” Levi starts,  and his knuckles are white around his phone, “I don’t want anything to do with that.”

“No – well, I want us to stay friends, Ri-Levi. I’ve not heard from you in nearly a year.”

“I’ve been a little busy,” he grinds out. His hand shakes. _Seizing on the floor in a crack house._

“I, uh, I actually wanted to ask you something,” she says, and Levi hums to urge her on.

“I just hope it’s not awkward, but I, ah, I want you to know that I’ve been seeing someone. We’re – we’re taking things a little further, and I want you to be there.”

Erwin’s fingers run over his knuckles.

“Is that it?” He asks, quiet.

“Levi there’s something el – “

He hangs up. His phone vibrates with a text, and he stares at the floor. Erwin is quiet.

She’s been dating someone else. Already, he’s proposed to her.

He throws his phone across the floor.

Erwin pulls him when he goes to sit up, hands on his arms, his shoulders.

“We were – we were basically over months before it was official,” Levi hisses, and his nails dig into his knees. “So I get – I get the streets, and she – she’s getting married after a year. I get,” his breathing hitches, “what – fucking addictions –“

“Rivaille,” Erwin murmurs, and his fingers press into his jaw.

“Whatever’s going on with her – it doesn’t matter. Forget her,” he said, and Levi screws his eyes shut tightly.

“Look at me, Erwin,” he says, clenches his jaw, “look at me.” He’s shaking and pale and sweating, and he hadn’t put on a shirt this morning and still hasn’t. His chest heaves with air he struggles to get and he can press his knees together and his thighs won’t touch, and his heart hardly manages to keep up with his body’s strain.

“I’m – dying, Erwin. I’m a drug addicted who – whore, and she’s getting married, and I’m –“

“Doing great with what happened,” Erwin cuts him off. His hands hold his wrists when Levi started to hunch in on himself, “you did what you had to do, Levi, and you’re fixing it now.” Levi hangs his head, twists slightly in Erwin’s grip and caves. He imagines her waking up to another man beside her, accepting the ring he offers her at the same time as he falls into a mans car to pay for something that brings him closer to death.

At the same time as he struggled to eat, at the same time as someone held a knife to his neck, she was safe in someone else’s arms without a second thought or a care.

For the first time in a while, Levi cries.

His shoulders shake and he sobs obscenely and Erwin lets go of his wrists and pulls him against his chest. His arms warm his back and his breath ghosts the top of his ear. He says gentle things above him and he holds him tight enough that he can hardly move, but it feels like security and reassurance, and his fingers fist his shirt.

He never wants to hear her again. He wants to take back everything he did, but he can’t and the withdrawals make him feel like he’s dying but so do the drugs and the prostitution and he misses when he once never had to worry about his heart giving out, if his mind is tricking him or there’s someone dangerous at the door, or how many men he has to suck off to eat or get high and which one is more important to him.

Levi sobs and his forehead pushes against Erwin’s chest. “I don’t want to do this,” he says between sobs and hiccups, and Erwin’s chin presses against the top of his head.

“I know,” he murmurs, and he presses a gentle kiss to the top of his head.

“I know, Levi. You’re doing great, you’re doing so well.”

Levi doesn’t think he’s truly living, not really, not yet. He hasn’t for a long time now. But Erwin says he will, and he wants to trust Erwin.


	16. Fifteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter to start your day, if you have a similar time zone anyway. Hope you enjoy it!

Erwin doesn’t let Levi go. His hands rub his back and shoulders and his waist, and Levi doesn’t want him to let go. He feels like shit, as if every regret and piece of shame and fear for his future suddenly hit him all at once. He’s well aware that he’s probably left Erwin’s shirt slightly wet, but he doesn’t care.

He cries until he can’t anymore and he’s left spluttering for breath, shoulders tense and shaking and head aching, his stomach flipping and he has to hold back from gagging with how hard he sobbed into Erwin’s chest.

He’s slightly impressed with how long he’s gone without crying despite his circumstances.

Erwin doesn’t let go even when he stops sobbing and he’s just shaking and hiccupping against him. He runs his hand through his hair and urges him to let it all out. If he focuses, he can feel his strong heartbeat under his hand pinned between their chests.

“You’ve been strong for far too long, Levi, it’s okay now, you can let it go,” Erwin murmurs, lips by his ear, and Levi slowly moves his tired arms up and around Erwin’s neck.

“I’m sorry,” Levi breathes, and Erwin shakes his head, holds him close.

“You have nothing to apologise for,” Erwin replies, and he brings one hand around and cups his cheek. His thumb brushes a stray tear away.

“You have every right to be sad, to be angry, to be emotional,” he states, and Levi tucks his head into the crook of Erwin’s neck, and Erwin’s hand moves to the back of his head, plays with his short hair.

“The world turned its’ back on you, but you’re getting back there, Levi. And I’ll be there whenever you need me.”

Levi lets out a sigh, relaxes his shoulders. He has Erwin, he has Erwin.

“I – I bet you didn’t expect this when we met that first day,” Levi murmurs, and Erwin chuckles softly.

“I didn’t,” he admits, nodding, “but I’m still glad I saw you that day.”

“Thank you,” Levi whispers, and Erwin hums in acknowledgment. He presses a gentle kiss to the side of Levi’s head, and they sit there quietly together.

Levi doesn’t think he’s living. Not yet. But he will be, one day, and he’ll have Erwin by his side that day.

His bones sing with exhaustion, and Erwin doesn’t seem to be in much of a hurry to move Levi – he hasn’t released him from his tight hold, anyway – and so Levi lets Erwin hold him until he stops shaking as much, and then he just shifts into a slightly more comfortable position for the both of them.

“What do you want to do when this is all over?” Erwin asks, and the question startles and confuses him. Levi lifts his head slightly so he can look at Erwin.

“What do you mean?” He asks.

Erwin’s hand runs through his hair, down his cheek.

“I mean, when this is all over what and you’re healthy again, what do you want to do? Go back to family or some friends, try and get your old job back?”

Levi isn’t actually quite sure about that. He never saw himself getting back onto his feet. His fingers tighten in Erwin’s shirt, and Erwin kisses his cheek.

“I’d love if you stayed with me, but you don’t have to,” he murmurs, and Levi shivers. He closes his eyes, feels Erwin’s lips brush his cheek, feel his breath warm his pale skin, his hands soothe him. He doesn’t want to leave.

“I’d… I’d love to stay. I don’t know what I’ll do, though… I want a job again,” he says with a nod, and Erwin’s lips brush his skin again. He isn’t sure where else he’d go, anyway.

“You know,” he says, “at my school we’re having a few people from different areas of expertise, so they can talk to the kids who might be interested in that area. I have a lot of kids who love music but have no idea where it might take them, or what they can do with a cello or a guitar. I can see if I can get you in for a couple of times. It’s not much, but it’s a start, something easy for you to do.”

While the idea of having a class’s attention on him, only, makes his heart spike with anxiety, it’s not a bad idea.

“Or even to do a little music workshop, introduce some of the first years to some instruments, see if any of them have natural talent. You spoke about tutoring, I’m sure if you were fine with flaunting your performances in that Tou-Tou-“

“Toulon Opéra.”

“That, then you’d be able to make a tutor partnership with the school, do some after school lessons with some kids in the music department.”

Levi toys with the idea in his head.

“I look like a heroin addict that’s had four overdoses in the last week. I don’t think that’s the kind of people your private school wants.”

“Well, I did say when you’re healthy again.”

Levi does take the thought into consideration. It’s simple and something he would consider doing, and so he nods.

“When’s this little thing going on at your school, then?”

Erwin tells him about it. It’s in a week, so he at least has some time to get through the worst of his symptoms and try and put some weight on, and there would be kids that were interested in his talk that would come to a music room, where he’d be, and he’d have a chance to talk to the kids about it. Erwin said that, if he had a free period, he’d be there.

Erwin says he’ll check in tomorrow when he goes in, and he grins when he says they’ll have to buy him some pants and shirts.

“I’m not,” Levi says, “looking like you.”

Erwin snorts. “I mean, you could try on one of my suits, but I highly doubt they’d fit perfectly.”

“Not all of us can be fucking giants, Smith.” Erwin glares at him with exasperation, and Levi just smirks slyly.

“I can’t help not being a dwarf,” he replies, and Levi knees his leg.

“It’s getting late,” Erwin continues, “and I’m tired.” He stands in one fluid motion, his hands holding the bottoms of Levi’s thighs, and Levi chokes on a breath, hurrying to wrap his slim legs around Erwin’s hips and to grab onto his shoulders to hold himself.

“Did you take your medicine?” He asks, pausing a few paces away, and Levi rolls his eyes.

“Yes, father,” he mutters, and Erwin raises an eyebrow.

“You can’t claim I’m both your sugar daddy and your father, Levi, please. Pick one.”

“Remember that time I called you a paedophile?”

“Which was extremely uncalled for, yes.”

“That one.”

Erwin ducks his head and his teeth graze his neck, and Levi presses his fingers into Erwin’s back.

“Cunt,” he mutters, and he feels Erwin grin.

They brush their teeth quickly before Erwin changes out into a pair of sweatpants, and Levi crawls into bed next to Levi. He pulls the duvet over himself eagerly. He looks at Erwin, who’s reaching away from Levi to fiddle with something on his bedside table and to turn the lamp off, and Levi only hesitates for a moment before he scoots over.

Erwin’s skin radiates warmth which he always seems to be lacking, and the blonde only startles slightly when Levi’s cold body touches his. He finishes fixing the bedside table and turns the lamp off fully and then he lays back, facing Levi.

There’s only a little bit of light coming in from the window – they forgot to close the curtains, but it’s nice to look out and see the city lights against the dark sky – but it’s enough to illuminate Erwin’s face. Levi traces his fingers along his jaw, his chin, and he holds his chin. He shifts forwards slightly, and he finds Erwin’s lips with his own slowly.

Erwin lets him kiss him gently, to test his lips, and he feels his heart hammer as he does so. But Erwin just does what Levi does in return with the addition of his hand on Levi’s cheek. His teeth catch Erwin’s bottom lip, and Erwin’s teeth nips his, and then Levi pulls back.

Levi slumps down the bed and lets his eyes flutter closed, and Erwin shifts until Levi’s using his chest as a pillow, and he wraps an arm around Erwin’s torso as a shiver briefly seizes him.

Erwin’s body is warm against his and his heartbeat is steady under his ear. He falls asleep with Erwin’s fingers splayed across his shoulder.

 

In the morning Erwin manages to get out from under Levi without waking him, and he only wakes when Erwin shakes his shoulder gently. He’s already showered and dressed and Levi smells mint on his teeth.

“I’m going now. I’ll talk about getting you in to talk to the students next week,” he says, and Levi hums. His eyes are tired and Erwin rubs his cheek.

“If you’re up for it,” he says, “we can go into town tonight and try and find some clothes for you. I’m beginning to run out of sweatpants.”

Levi’s lips twitch, and he nods. “Sure,” he croaks, throat dry, and he brings Erwin’s hand from his cheek down, kisses his knuckles.

“Try and get some more rest,” Erwin says, and there’s no more hesitation when his lips brush his forehead before he leaves.

Levi listens to the door lock, and he falls back to sleep.

 

His stomach moans hungrily this time he wakes up, and he forgets where he is for a few minutes. He has to sit up and take the room in and process it before he remembers where he is, and it takes him longer to remember what’s going on.

He hauls himself out of bed and decides that, if he and Erwin are going out for clothes, he might as well not look greasy and unkempt, and so he finds himself in the shower. He washes his hair lazily and when he washes his body with Erwin’s coconut and honey scented body wash, he looks out of the shower and into the mirror. He stares at himself, pale and small, and he watches his fingers fall over each rib, watches his hands grab onto his own hipbones and scratch the dip beneath the two. He turns to the side, sees how his stomach dips inwards, a deep valley between his jutting hipbones and ribs, and then he looks at his shoulder blades, sharp under his fingertips. He can’t be bothered to reach his spine, so he stares at the prominent bumps jutting out of his skin. He hasn’t put any weight on, yet, but he hasn’t lost any either, which is good. Not ideal, but not bad.

Levi hurries to finish his shower and wraps a fluffy towel around his hips, and he finds his jeans that Erwin washed at some point, but he can’t find his hoody or shirt and he doesn’t feel particularly bad for stealing another one of Erwin’s jumpers. It hands to his mid-thigh and hangs past his fingers, but it’s warm and soft.

The windows in the living room are coated in a thin layer of frost but the apartment is warm, and Levi makes himself some tea and sits on the couch, a blanket spread across his lap. He almost goes to turn the TV on, but every time they’ve watched TV hasn’t gone particularly well and he doesn’t want to chance it, so he finds Erwin’s speaker and puts on the classical music from where it left off the other day.

He sees his phone on the floor from where he threw it carelessly, and he grimaces, but gently picks it up. There’s a spider web of scratches and one crack across it, but otherwise it’s intact. There’s three messages from her, and he deletes the notifications before he can properly read or see them, and then he turns his phone off and stuffs it into his jean pockets.

He returns to his tea and music, and watches the life outside the window. The tea soothes his throat and it warms his chest, and it reminds him to take the cough syrup, which makes him feel pleasantly sleepy and slightly numb.

He curls back up onto the sofa, pulls the blanket over him, and he lets his eyes close slowly until he falls asleep again, or into a similar state. He isn’t sure.

 

His phone vibrating painfully against his hip wakes him up and he groans, but pulls it out. He makes sure to check the ID before answering it this time, and is pleased to see it’s only Erwin.

“How’s my favourite sugar baby today?” He asks, and Levi scoffs. He rubs his eyes tiredly.

“Much better five minutes ago. I was sleeping,” he mumbles, and a yawn stretches his lips.

“Sorry about that. Feeling any better?” He still feels freezing cold and there’s an aching in his bones that won’t go away. If he doesn’t focus on now, then time falls like sand between his fingers.

“I guess,” he says instead.

“Up for some shopping?”

“You sound like a mother,” Levi snorts, “but yes.”

“Cool,” Erwin says, and he can hear the smile, “I’ll be back around half three, then, and we can just go right in. We could go out for dinner, too, if you’re up for it.”

The idea makes his heart beat faster, but he wants to get out of this apartment, if only for an evening.

“Sure, if you know a good place.”

“I know some good places I think you’d like,” Erwin says, and Levi hums.

“I’m looking forwards to it then.”

Erwin speaks to him a little more, mostly fussing over him – making sure he took the medicine, that he eats something, etcetera, and Levi assures him multiple times that he has, he’s fine, until Erwin has to go for the next class.

Levi sets his phone on the coffee table and stretches his arms above his head, hears multiple cracks come from it, and then he falls back onto the couch. He’s anxious about actually going back outside and his legs feel weak, so he decides to just curl up and pass more time on the couch until Erwin comes home.

When the blonde does come home, they spend a while picking out a coat for Levi. His own was dirty and so Erwin washed it but hasn’t been able to dry it yet, and they decide that if he’s got one of Erwin’s jumpers on already he might as well just take one of his jackets.

He ends up with a thick mustard kind of colour corduroy coat that has fluff on the inside and has a similarly fluffy collar, and it ends just past his jumper, near his mid thighs, but he feels warm again for once and they head out once he pulls his shoes on.

The weather, other than a chill in the air and puddles around them, is fair and he doesn’t have to worry about the rain or snow or wind as they park Erwin’s car and make their way into the main shopping centre, full of people doing last minute Christmas shopping.

“You’re all good to come in next week,” Erwin says, and his gloved fingers slip between Levi’s, who raises an eyebrow at him. “To talk to the kids about music.”

“Cool,” Levi murmurs, and he walks closer to Erwin. It’s a small step, but it’s a step forwards and back into society. “Hopefully they aren’t brats.”

“I can’t promise anything,” Erwin says, and Levi’s lips twitch.

Erwin first takes him into shops for more formal clothes and he makes Levi try on several pairs of business trousers and shirts, and they eventually settle on a black button up shirt and trousers that fit him length wise but need a belt. When Levi tries the shirt on, Erwin stands just outside of the changing room. When Levi's fingers shake too much he can't put the buttons in, Erwin does it for him. He stands close, takes his time buttoning the shirt, and then he turns Levi around the look in the mirror. His hands travel down his side, smoothing the shirt down, and then he rolls the sleeves up to Levi's elbows. "I like this one," he says in  a low voice, mouth next to Levi's ears. He shivers under Erwin's hands and lets him kiss the back of his neck, and they buy it.

Next is shoes, and Erwin’s all too familiar with these kinds of shops. Even when Levi had a steady income he didn’t frequent these kinds of shops, and it throws him slightly.

He appreciates when he can sit down to try shoes on, because his legs shake and knees threaten to give out without a break, but he doesn’t want to tell Erwin that.

They get him a pair of oxford shoes that match Erwin’s, and then Erwin also buys him a new pair of sneakers, and a pair of boots, and the price makes Levi’s heart race.

They walk through the shopping centre with the bags of their purchases in their free hands that aren’t busy with each others, and Levi tries to ignore the blood rushing in his ears. He feels like everyone he passes is staring at him, as if they know what he’s done, what he’s like. What if he runs into a man that picked him up on the corner and recognises him? What if his old dealer sees him? His heart thumps painfully and he lets Erwin lead him throughout the centre blindly.

They’re walking towards a little coffee shop, hand-in-hand, which Erwin tells him does amazing drinks when hurried, scuffling footsteps race to them, followed by excited “hi Mr Smith!”’s.

Levi tries to let his hand fall from Erwin’s, but Erwin himself isn’t bother about it and doesn’t let go.

In front of them are a small group of teenagers, and he recognises three of them immediately. Mikasa, Armin and Eren. The rest are vaguely familiar, and he suspects he’s only seen them once if they were with the first three.

They Levi and his hand in Erwin, and Levi stares impassively back, doesn’t let his anxiety show.

Then a brunette grins. “So this is who kept you off school for a day?” He asks, and Erwin does falter at that, exasperation flooding his features. Levi mentally snickers.

“Nothing happened, Jean, I’m fairly certain I’ve already told you this multiple times,” Erwin says, and Erwin just raises an eyebrow sceptically and nod, folding his arms over his chest.

“Levi?” Armin says, and Levi’s cheeks heat slightly.

“Hi, Armin,” he says, and he watches him and his two close friends share looks.

“You know each other?” Erwin asks, and Armin’s mouth works silently.

“We’ve met,” Levi says instead, and Erwin inclines his head a bit.

“I can’t tell if you look worse or better,” Mikasa comments, and before Erwin can scold her Levi steps in.

“Worse in a good kind of way,” he offers, and Mikasa simply nods.

“So you two…?” Some other unrecognisable kid says, and Erwin raises an eyebrow.

“Yes,” he confirms, and his hand squeezes Levi’s. “And shouldn’t you all be home studying? I did issue a test for next Monday,” he says, and the teenagers cheeks flush.

“Shouldn’t you be marking our reports?” One kid retorts, and Erwin tilts his head.

“Finished them, Sasha. Be patient.”

The teenagers ramble for a while longer, and Armin says that he hopes Levi’s doing better before they leave, and he and Erwin continue into their coffee shop.

“So you’ve already met some of them?” Erwin comments, dropping Levi’s hand to take out his wallet.

“Sort of,” Levi shrugs, “I know three of them. They gave me money whenever they saw me and spoke sometimes. They’re alright, I guess,” he says.

Erwin nods, and he seems proud of his students for a moment before he gets called up to order their drinks. He gets Levi a tea and they walk around the shopping centre with their purchases, sipping the drinks they bought, and they duck into a few more stores. They pick out a large amount of clothes for Levi – casual clothes and pyjamas and a new jacket, and Levi tries not to look at the price. When they’re done, they wander for a little longer before sitting down at a bench.

“Do you want to go out for dinner or head back?” Erwin asks him. His thigh presses against Levi’s.

“I don’t mind,” Levi says, but he has to blink dizziness away. His knees feel weak and his lungs claw oxygen in them as if he’s ran a marathon.

“I don’t know about you,” Erwin says, “but I’m quite tired. I say we just head back.” Levi knows Erwin just needed to take one look at Levi and came up with that so Levi doesn’t have to feel bad about needing to rest.

They make their way back to Erwin’s car when he feels like his legs really might give out, but he manages to stuff his bags into the trunk of the car and clamber into the passengers seat before that happens, and he sighs in relief when he sits back. His hands shake as puts his seat belt on, and Erwin drives with one hand on the wheel and the other on Levi’s thigh.

The car drives smoothly, and Levi’s head falls to the side, forehead against the window. He takes a deep breath in and his eyes slip closed. Sound dies down to a buzzing in his ears, and then everything’s silent. Erwin’s hand is warm and steady on him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I love hearing all your feedback on it, so feel free to comment!


	17. Sixteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear I meant to write fluff in this chapter, it just... Didn't happen...
> 
> Either way I still hope you all enjoy it!

Erwin shakes him awake when the car drives to a halt, and Levi groans and rubs his eyes, but drags himself out of the car and helps carry their bags of shopping inside. They sit them on the coffee table inside, and then they strip off their (Erwin’s) coats and shoes, and fall onto the sofa. “I think we did pretty well,” Erwin comments, and Levi snorts, looking at all the bags in front of them.

“You think?” He says, and he rubs his face with cold hands, which he hides under the sleeves of Erwin’s baggy jumper.

“We’ll put them away later,” Erwin says, and he rises to his feet and walks into the kitchen where he makes two cups of tea, handing one to Levi.

“What do you think about pasta for dinner?” He asks, and Levi hums, lips on the rim of the cup.

“I’m alright with that,” he agrees, and blows across the surface of the steaming tea.

“Good. I’ve been told I make some good pasta,” he states, and Levi raises an eyebrow.

“I’m sure that’s not a lie,” he replies, and Erwin narrows his eyes at him. Levi just smirks.

He watches Erwin move around the kitchen as he makes pasta, his chin on the back of the sofa. His movements are fluid and he hums something under his breath to himself. When he’s done cooking he brings the plates over, handing Levi one. Levi takes it, holds it in one hand carefully, and he grabs Erwin’s hands. With his lips ghosting over his knuckles, Levi murmurs, “thank you, Irvin.”

He watches him quietly for a moment, and Erwin moves his hand from Levi’s, cups his face. Levi closes his eyes, feels Erwin’s fingers warm his cheek.

“Anything for you, Rivaille,” he replies, quietly, and then he sits down beside him and they eat. Levi helps Erwin put the dishes away, and Erwin turns some music on – soft, low music that is soothing to his ears – and they begin to put Levi’s clothes away in Erwin’s wardrobe.

“I think I’ll miss you in my clothes,” Erwin comments with a sigh, and Levi snorts.

“Get used to it, Smith,” he retorts, and Erwin flicks his cheek.

He doesn’t say anything about not stealing the clothes anyway, though. They’re comfortable and warm when he’s cold.

“The school thing,” Levi says, hanging up a jumper, and Erwin hums. “What’s actually happening with it?” He asks.

“Well,” Erwin begins, “I’ll take you in with me, obviously, and I’ll take you to the office. You’ll get a pass, and then brought to your room, and after the first bell goes you’ll get some kids from the younger years, then after break you’ll have kids from the senior years. After lunch you’re pretty much free to do whatever – wait until I’m done, go into town and get a drink until I’m done – whatever,” Erwin shrugs, and Levi ponders his options before nodding. He’s still anxious about it, but he assures himself it’ll be fine.

They finish putting his clothes away and Levi sets his shoes in the neat line next to Erwin’s, which makes his look tiny in comparison.

They return to the living room and Levi slumps into the sofa and Erwin follows after him, his thigh against Levi’s. He thinks about the school thing he’s doing, and what he’ll tell the kids.

Erwin tells him stories of the kids he’s dealt with – both the good and the bad – and Levi hopes he doesn’t get any of the brats.

His stomach is full and when Erwin touches him, he feels warm. There’s a roof over his head and a bed he can sleep in and the first step to a possible job coming quickly.

Levi closes his eyes and lets the scene wash over him. It’s a start, and a damn good one. He’s incredibly lucky, and his stomach twists. There’ll be people forgetting their sorrows tonight with a murdering drug in their system, and someone might lose a friend to a too-full syringe. He’s damn lucky.

Erwin’s fingers brush over his, and Levi opens his eyes, tilts his head to look at him.

“What made you stop?” He asks. “That day we met. What made you stop? What made you keep talking to me? You could have easily kept walking, left me after you woke me up, never spoken to me again. Why?”

Erwin’s eyes are thoughtful as he gazes back at Levi, and he doesn’t break the eye contact.

“I stopped because no one else did, and it was cold. I would have stopped for anyone else in that situation, too. But I kept talking to you because you intrigued me. I knew there was something else to why you were in that alley, but you were a good, interesting person. I wanted to get to know you,” Erwin says, “and I don’t regret it.”

Levi turns his eyes to the window. He’s thankful, even if his bones still ache and his vision warps if he looks at something too far away, and he still thinks he might be sick. But he thinks, for the first time, he made the right choice to let Erwin help him.

He thanks whatever god crossed his and Erwin’s paths.

He links their fingers together on the couch, and his heart skips as he leans up. Erwin doesn’t move back, and he presses their lips together. He’s careful at first, hesitant, but he wraps his arms around Erwin’s neck, slides himself onto Erwin’s lap. Erwin responds after a moment of shock, cups the back of his neck and lets the other arm wrap around him.

Levi sits up slightly so he’s slightly taller than Erwin in this position and his hand drifts from behind him to hold his jaw gently, keeping him close, and he dashes his tongue out briefly, swiping across Erwin’s lips. He tries to deepen the kiss, press his body closer to Erwin’s, but then the blonde pulls him back slightly, just enough so there’s space between their lips, and his hands aren’t on him, and his hands aren’t on him.

“Levi,” he says, slightly breathless, “do you know what you’re doing?”

There’s hesitation in Erwin’s blue eyes, and the question makes Levi pause. He knows what he’s doing, but part of him wonders if he’s doing it for the right reasons. Part of him wants it because he wants Erwin, and there’s a small, scared, desperate part of him that wants something, anything, if either in return to Erwin’s help or just for the need to do something, feel something new.

Levi goes to connect their lips again and Erwin stops him, catches his chin gently. “Answer me, Levi. I don’t want to do anything if it’s only because you’re – you need something that isn’t that, that I can’t give you.”

Levi falters. He isn’t sure, anymore. It’s a bit of both, but the underlying urgency he feels makes him suspect it’s more of the latter. The panic he feels now that Erwin is staring closely into his eyes, waiting for an answer, makes him suspect it’s more of the latter.

Erwin kisses his cheek, lets go of his chin, and Levi’s head falls down.

“I’m sorry,” Levi says, and his eyes burn as he stares at the wall behind Erwin, “I’m sorry.”

Erwin cards his fingers through his hair, and he pulls him against his chest. Levi’s hands are limp by his sides, curled on the couch. “Shhh,” Erwin murmurs, gently, and Erwin rocks him slightly. Levi doesn’t cry, but he thinks he almost does.

 

Erwin doesn’t make things awkward. He tells him he’s doing well, that he won’t feel like this forever, and he mumbles in German to him words the comfort him even if he doesn’t actually understand what he’s saying. Eventually, he turns the music off from the app on his phone and they go back into his bedroom. At some point, probably while they were putting Levi’s clothes away, Erwin put an extra blanket over the bed, a thick, heavy fluffy one, and when Levi sinks under the weight of them he’s grateful for it. It’s warmer and the weight over him comforts him, grounds him.

Erwin’s breath warms the back of his neck, and one of his legs slip between Levi’s. He holds the arm over his chest and feels Erwin’s chest move with each steady, deep breath against his back, and he doesn’t fall asleep for a while longer.

_Erwin never stops by that alley. Levi never meets the blue-eyed man, and he drags himself out of that alley with blue-tinted lips. He gives up quicker, and he finds himself drawn to the packet in the corner of his dumpster quicker than he had. He dreams that he passes out in alleys and throws up in bushes, and he dreams that no one knows he exists. He dreams he walks past a church with a wedding going on inside, and he’s too high to remember his name. He dreams that he forgets his name, eventually, and he takes the syringe someone offers him. Eventually, someone shows him how to liquefy cocaine and he mixes it with the heroin and it makes him fly like he never has before. He feels like he’s burning, that the fires from Hell are coming to devour him and he deserves it. He dreams that his hand strokes a strangers’ cock and he doesn’t feel like a human. He dreams that his mind melts and his life is a routine of highs and crashes and becoming less and less of a person. A blue eyed man that he’s never seen before puts money in a cup in front of him, and he doesn’t move. He dreams that he lays on his stomach for a man and he can’t tell if he caught something or it’s the drugs, but he pays for another syringe and puts a pill on his tongue, and he dies in an alleyway by himself, seizing, gasping for air, and his heart gives out. He doesn’t have a funeral because no one knows who he is, and no one other than the morticians knows he’s dead, and even they forget hours later._

Erwin sliding out of bed wakes him up, and Levi sits up. His legs are tired from the walking yesterday and his stomach turns, and there’s a distant taste of vomit in the back of his mouth. His body shakes and his veins burn for something he hasn’t even had, and he thinks he might pass out.

Erwin doesn’t notice he’s awake, pulling clothes out of his wardrobe, and Levi falls over when he runs towards the bathroom. His knees ache and his head spins, but he gets back up and makes it to the toilet in time to vomit painfully, his stomach cramping and throat burning.

He jumps when Erwin’s hand rests on his back, and it burns but he doesn’t move it. He wants to know he’s alive.

Levi washes his mouth out with shaking hands and he sees a skeleton staring back at him in the mirror. It glares at Levi, tells him he dug his own grave, and Levi tries to remember how to breathe.

Erwin helps him sit down on the cool tile floor and Levi hunches his shoulders, grips his upper arms, and Erwin moves his hair out of his face. He hears each little noise in the apartment, the wind against the window, a creaking floorboard, the rustle his own clothes make, and he presses his face into his knees and breathes deeply.

Erwin helps him stand to his feet and a moan escapes his lips as his body aches in protest. The skeleton in the mirror spits at him, and Erwin takes him out of the bathroom, setting him back on the bed. Levi feels like if he shakes anymore it could be counted as a seizure.

Erwin sits back on the bed next to him and strokes his arm as Levi stares at the wall. Mould grows along it from the bottom to the top and clogs his lungs, and Levi coughs painfully. Erwin rubs his back, and Levi rubs his eyes with the heels of his shaking hands.

“Bad dream?” He asks, and Levi lets his eyes slip closed. He sees a syringe in his own pale hands line up with the last available vein on his left arm, and he pries his eyes open again.

“You could say that,” he croaks, and his eyes burn. It feels too realistic, and he wonders if that’s exactly what would’ve happened if Erwin hadn’t seen him that day, hadn’t given him a second chance at life.

“I’m here, Levi,” Erwin says, his lips ghost over his cheek, and his fingers slip between Levi’s. Levi holds on tightly to Erwin’s hand, and Erwin doesn’t complain.

“I never wanted to die,” Levi mutters, and Levi’s thumb rubs the back of his hand.

“Do you now?” Erwin asks.

Levi presses his lips together. He thinks it would be easier if he did.

“No,” he decides, “I don’t want to.” Erwin hand parts his hair, fingers tickling his scalp.

Erwin lips move above his cheek. “Good,” he says, and Levi focuses on their hands. He doesn’t want to die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, if you want to private message me about any of my stories, you can find me on Tumblr @killerrs-queen. I hope you liked it, feel free to let me know what you thought!


	18. Seventeen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I hope you enjoy this part!
> 
> I've also posted the first part of a new story in the works - it's eruri, and AU. If you enjoy some classy smut, you might like it.

Days pass, and not much changes. Levi watches things that only he can see, and the TV still makes him have panic attacks. He vomits after nightmares and Erwin holds him close at nights. He tries to eat more, enough that he puts on a couple of pounds, but not enough to make him run to the bathroom after every meal. He kisses Erwin and Erwin kisses him, and when he doesn’t get out of bed one day because he can’t even tell up from down and if that’s Erwin touching him or someone else, Erwin stays with him, makes him drink water and strokes his sweat-soaked bangs out of his face.

Eventually, though, he wakes up one day at the same time of Erwin and skips breakfast because his stomach twists with anxiety. He sits on the edge of Erwin’s bed with a towel around his hips and lets Erwin comb his hair.

“You’re going to do great, Levi,” he says, and Levi just shrugs nervously.

“You will,” Erwin repeats, and he catches Levi’s chin and forces him to look up at him. “Got it?”

Levi snorts softly, but nods as well as he can with his fingers on his chin. “Okay,” he agrees, and Erwin continues to neatly comb his hair.

When he’s done, Levi gets changed into the fancy clothes Erwin bought him and lets Erwin roll the sleeves up to his elbows. He looks at his reflection as Erwin showers and gets changed. He looks… Better. He still looks ill, and he feels horrible, but he looks closer to how he did before he ended up on the streets than after. It shakes him slightly. Two weeks ago he never would have thought he’d make it to this step.

Erwin finds him staring at his reflection, and he rests his hands on his shoulders. “You look great,” he says, fixes the collar of his shirt slightly. “Amazing.”

Levi presses his lips together. “Thank you,” he says. “I never thought I’d be able to make it to this point again,” he admits, and Erwin nods in acknowledgment.

“You’re doing great, Levi,” he says, and Levi believes him.

They make tea and coffee and Levi nibbles at some toast. Erwin asks how he’s feeling, and Levi admits he’s nervous. Erwin rubs the back of his hand, and they brush their teeth. Erwin guides him with a hand on his back outside and to his car, and he plays the radio while they drive. It’s early morning and there’s frost on everything and a chill outside, but his new scarf and jacket he bought yesterday actually works in keeping the chill out of his bones, unlike his old one.

Sina Academy is a large, intimidating building. It’s the kind of school Levi’s mother would have wanted him to go to, but the one they wouldn’t have been able to afford. There’s designated parking spots for each teacher, and Erwin’s is close to the entrance. At the other side of the street are the houses for the foreign students and their families and even some of the teachers, and Levi feels dwarfed by the other women and men heading in to work. Erwin signs them in and they collect the ID card for Levi, which says _WORKING GUEST_ along it.

They have time, so Erwin gives him a quick tour of some of the school. He shows Levi where his room is, and where the bathrooms are, where the staff room and cafeteria is. He shows him where his classroom is, too, a few corridors over from the music department, and Levi sits on a desk as Erwin unpacks and writes a few things on the smart board for his first class. There’s students work covering his walls and it’s incredibly neat and organised.

“So,” Levi says, “this is where you torment children for hours each day?” He asks, and Erwin raises his eyebrows at him.

“I’ll have you know,” he says, “my students love my class.”

Levi hums. “You might want to watch what you say about your pupils, Mr Smith,” he comments, and Erwin stands in front of him. Levi tilts his head to look up at him with narrowed eyes, and then Erwin leans down and gently kisses him.

“You’ll do great today, Levi,” he says against his lips. “Come find me when you’re done, if you want.” Levi tips his head to the side.

“Maybe,” he says, and Erwin’s lips twitch. Levi looks around the room and sighs.

“It feels like fucking ages since I was in a classroom,” he states, and Erwin snorts. He steps back, looks around his room.

“I would say the same, but…” He trails off, and Levi scoffs.

“The last time I sat in one of these desks I was a shitty brat who mixed vodka with way too many things.”

Erwin laughs, and Levi shrugs. “Told myself I’d never walk back into a school, yet here I am.”

“It’s not as bad as you think,” Erwin tries, and Levi groans.

“School, Mr Smith, is and always will be a horrible, dreary place.”

“And if I’m there?”

Levi scoffs. “Nothing can ever change the fact that school is terrible, Erwin. And you being here is useless to me when I’m always at your house.”

Erwin hums and strokes his arm. “I guess that’s a good point,” he agrees. His eyes flick to the clock on the wall behind Levi, and he sighs.

“First bell’s about to ring, you should head to your class,” he says, and Levi also sighs. He slips off the desk he was sitting on, shoes clicking against the floor, and he turns back to Erwin who smiles at him. Erwin lets him kiss him one last time before he takes a step back towards the door.

“Come see me at break. You’ll do great, Levi,” Erwin says, and Levi waves over his shoulder.

“I might,” he jokes, and then he walks out the door quick enough that Erwin almost misses the murmured thank you.

The music classroom is nice – much nicer than the ones Levi had had at his high school. There’s a table going around the wall with keyboards and one large, acoustic piano next to the teachers desk. There’s ukuleles and guitars hung on the wall, and a drum set in one corner. There’s a couple of violins and a cello in the spacious cupboard in one corner, and across the room is a recording studio. There’s posters of famous musicians around the room and there are windows overlooking a garden.

The bell rings a couple of moments later, and Levi pulls a violin out of the cupboard and tunes it. He uses the guest login for the computer on the teachers desk and starts searching for something, and soon enough he manages to find a certain video. It’s on their website – they always post the winner of each competition, or videos of each performance – and it sends chills through his veins. Him, nine years younger, standing on a stage in a luxurious opera hall, in some fancy suit and an expensive violin in his hands. He pauses it at the beginning and only has to turn the projector hanging from the ceiling on, and the image is on the smart-board.

He finishes setting that up when there’s a knock at the door and it opens hesitantly. There’s a young girl there, with her blonde hair up in a ponytail, stray strands framing her face, and she has a violin case in her hands.

“Are you Mr Ackerman?” She asks meekly, and Levi nods, gestures her to come in.

She takes a seat at one of the tables, and Levi asks for her name.

“Historia,” she says, and Levi comments on its uniqueness and she smiles. A few minutes pass and Levi waits until it seems like everyone has arrived. He goes over names and adamantly tells them to call him Levi instead of ‘Mr Ackerman’, and then he starts. He asks them about what they like about music, what instruments they play, if they want to take it further in life. They play little parts of songs for him, and he caves when they ask him to play something for them. He uses the violin he had tuned before they arrive, and his fingers touch the strings with old familiarity, holds the bow as if he’d never let go. He plays just a little piece for them, and they clap over enthusiastically. It makes him laugh.

They get to the questions. They ask him what he’s done with music, when he started playing instruments, what they could do with it. One of them gets curious and points out the paused video he had actually forgotten about.

“It’s a video of me,” he says, “nine years ago, when I was really into this music thing. I got to perform in the Toulon Opera in France.”

He plays the video for them, and watches it with similar fascination. If he closes his eyes, he can see it from his own perspective – see the painted ceiling, the eyes watching him, see his fingers move on the strings of his own accord and his hand move the bow swiftly and surely to recreate Beethoven’s ‘violin sonata no. 9; Kreutzer’. The camera angle changes to show the hall and the crowd and Levi, and Levi can still remember what the strings felt like under his fingers, can remember the muscle memory of playing that song over and over until he got it perfect. He could probably still play it now if he tried.

“You got invited to perform there?” One kid asks, and Levi hums and nods his head.

“Yup. I’ve played in a few other orchestra halls in France, but that was the best one. It’s something you could do if you put the effort in,” he tells them. “It just takes dedication. I could have really built a name up for myself in the classical world, or whatever, but then I got side tracked with other things. A shame, really,” he shrugs.

The kids leave with the bell and the next lot come in, and it’s pretty much the same spiel. He talks to them about music, sees what they have to offer, takes a note of promising musicians, shows them him performing in the Toulon Opera and tells them about the many things music can branch into, what they can do with it with a little dedication and hard work. Break rolls by and Levi makes his way through the student-flooded hallways to Erwin’s classroom.

He waits outside as he hears him talking to a pupil, and his lips twitch when he hears the tone of his voice – a put on, disappointed adult tone – as he scolds the kid and says, he’s not mad, just disappointed. The kid leaves his classroom looking guilty and Levi walks in with a smirk.

“Disappointed, Erwin?” He asks, and Erwin gives him a look.

“Yes,” he confirms, “he was acting up all class.”

“The struggle for you is real,” Levi comments sarcastically and Erwin hits his back. They go to the staffroom, weaving through other English teachers and to the coffee machine and kettle in the back, and Erwin makes them a drink.

“How did it go, then?” He asks, a hopeful glint in his eyes. Levi shrugs nonchalantly.

It went much better than he expected, honestly. The kids kept him focused enough that he hardly had to rein his awareness back to the present, hardly noticed the little shadows dancing in the corner of his vision or the ache in his bones. But that doesn’t compare to the way it makes him feel about himself – he feels productive, finally. He feels like he’s finally doing something right and is doing something that’s a step in the right direction. He feels like he’s a step closer to being normal again.

“It went well, I guess,” he admits, and Erwin smiles.

“Good,” he says, “I’m glad. I trust the kids are polite?” He asks, and Levi nods.

“Surprisingly so.” He confirms, and Erwin seems relieved. They sip their coffee and talk until someone yells Erwin’s name, and there’s a tall brunette scurrying towards them.

Erwin looks flustered and he sighs as he greets the woman.

“Hello, Hanji,” he says, and the woman grins in response, a slender finger pushing her glasses up her nose. She turns to look at Levi standing in front of Erwin, and she leans against the blonde.

“Who’s this, then?” She asks curiously, quirking an eyebrow.

“Hanji, meet Levi. Levi, this is Hanji – she’s a science teacher, but she likes to harass me down here.” Erwin introduces, and Levi tilts his head. He’s ashamed to admit the way she touches Erwin makes his stomach twist.

She offers Levi her hand and he shakes it, and then she grins at Erwin. “I like him. If you’ve not already claimed him, I might have to,” she says, and Levi’s cheeks heat up, along with Erwin’s.

“Go find someone else to eye, Hanji,” Erwin says, and the energetic woman deflates dramatically.

“One day, Erwin, I’ll trust you to set me up with someone,” she sighs, and Erwin playfully rolls her eyes. However, Hanji does slink off, and Levi hears her loud voice as she talks to someone else in the staffroom.

“Sorry,” Erwin says with a little laugh, “she’s a bit… Eccentric, but she means well,” he offers, and Levi sips his tea.

It feels weird to be in school and be seen as a teacher. His last memory of being in education was always as a pupil striving to pass exams and follow school dress codes and rules and getting punishments if he was disrespectful, but now, he’s one of the adults as far as the pupils are concerned. It’s odd, and Levi wonders how Erwin manages.

Break ends and they part ways, and Levi has his final classes with the older years, who are more experienced with music and more serious about it. With them he talks about universities with good music equipment and courses in the state, and others in different countries that offer scholarships to international students. He talks to them about how much they perform and compete, and Levi’s thoroughly impressed. They all have a dedication and passion for music that he once shared to the same extent, and it’s nostalgic. They awe at the video of his performance and one kid admits he’d once seen a performance there, last year, and how he’d love to play up on that stage. Levi tells him that if it’s what he wants, he’ll make it a reality.

When he’s done with all the classes, he finds Erwin at lunch and they eat in his classroom. A couple of students pop by to talk to Erwin and one sits in the corner to finish some work, and Erwin occasionally checks in with them. Otherwise, he sits at his desk with Levi and they speak. Erwin talks about Christmas coming up – it’s in eight days, and that startles him – and he tries to subtly ask what Levi would like if he was to get a present. Levi just rolls his eyes and comments on how much Erwin has already done for him, and tries not to think about how he’d probably be high right now if he hadn’t.

He stays in Erwin’s class for the last two periods of the day, and he watches Erwin teach with an air of authority. One kid tries to get smart with him, and Levi watches Erwin handle it professionally, and when one kid tries to make comment about Levi being here for no apparent reason other than being Erwin’s ‘boytoy’, he shuts him down too. It’s only slightly amusing, but he wouldn’t tell Erwin that when he orders the kid out of the class with a deep tone of voice Levi wants to hear again.

Erwin apologises to Levi, who really couldn’t care less what the teenagers say about him, and they leave once the school bell goes and Erwin has all his stuff packed away into his bag. They give Levi’s pass back in and fall into Erwin’s warm car, putting the heated seats on. It’s raining heavily and it pounds against the windshield, and Erwin takes a moment to relax into the warmth of the car.

“I’m proud of you,” he says, and his hand rests on his thigh. Levi’s cheeks turn a rosy shade of pink and he looks away, feigning nonchalance.

“Thanks, I guess,” Levi says, and Erwin smiles. He kisses his cheek.

“I mean it,” he murmurs beside his ear, and then he starts his car, tells Levi to put his seatbelt on, and they leave the school grounds.

Erwin drives them home swiftly, and they hurry inside before they can get soaked by the rain. In the elevator to Erwin’s floor they shed their wet coats and carry them in to hang them above a radiator, and Erwin lights the fireplace in his living room. It makes shadows dance across the walls and floor and furniture, and it reflects in Erwin’s eyes. Levi lets his eyes linger before he sits down and unties his shoelaces. Despite not actually doing much, he feels surprisingly tired from the exertion on his still rather weak body, and he sinks into the sofa, lets the warmth of the fire wash over his cold body.

Erwin is close after him, and he sits down next to Levi. He thinks it’s a habit now, rather than a conscious action when Erwin’s fingers run through his hair, and he tips his head towards the comforting feeling.

“School is still a shithole,” he mutters, and Erwin laughs, quiet and deep.

“It could be worse,” he muses, and Levi hums.

It could be much worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you're still enjoying this story as it's dragging on through Levi's healing! Feel free to let me know what you think!


	19. Eighteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the longer than usual wait - my laptop charger broke, it died, and I had to buy a new one earlier today. That being said, I hope you enjoy this part!

Erwin cooks them some chicken, rice and vegetables that night. He hums a tune under his breath and Levi watches him move fluidly through the kitchen. Erwin is a good cook, and it’s nice. Levi’s never been a good cook, and he doesn’t want to start to learn now in Erwin’s very nice, very expensive, very flammable house.

Erwin hands him a steaming plate of food that makes his mouth water – his appetite has been coming back to him – and they eat with quite music coming from his speakers, and it’s nice. When they’re done Levi helps clean up and then he speaks up.

“Do you get the internet on your TV?” He asks, and Erwin raises an eyebrow. “I want to show you something.”

Erwin nods, because of course his TV has google, and he shows him how to set it up and connect it to his phone so he can search the web easier and quicker than using the TV remote. He pulls up a French website, scrolls through it, and finds the video.

In front of the kids, Levi managed to put a barrier between himself and the video. He could pretend it wasn’t really himself, could pretend he couldn’t feel the strings under his fingers, see the crowd watching him. He could pretend that he didn’t care about it and it was just a video of some random seventeen year old playing his violin. But in front of Erwin, Levi can be vulnerable.

“They record their performances,” he says, and he hesitates before he presses play. The camera quality is poor but it zooms in on a pale, raven haired man with an expensive professional violin in his hands. He doesn’t have any tattoos or piercings – he did have his ears pierced actually, but he had to take them out to perform – and he starts off slow, his bow dragging across the strings, fingers pressing down, moving, and sounds fill the orchestra hall. There’s someone on the piano behind Levi, accompanying him, and the piece he plays in this video is just under thirty-five minutes long. They watch the entire thing and neither of them says anything.

If Levi closes his eyes, he can see the people in the crowd of the video staring back at him. He can feel his feet hurt with how long he stood on the stage – his entire performance was two hours and-a-bit long, and _The Kreutzer,_ the piece on the video, was his last song to perform. He did get breaks between each song, some other random pianist performing for ten minutes or so, before he was back out. His feet had blisters the next day but he didn’t regret it. If he focuses, he can feel the skin on his fingers tear and bleed a bit from how much they scraped against the strong strings, feel the blister on his right hand from holding the bow tightly and manoeuvring it with flicks of his wrist and forearm. If he thinks hard enough, he can feel the hot lights beat down on him, remember his heart race with the eyes of professionals on him, waiting for him to make a mistake, and the aged opera stars watching him with blank expressions, seeing if he truly had promise. If he focused enough, he could see his mother in the crowd, staring with wide, loving eyes.

Levi’s eyes were closed as he played, thin eyebrows furrowed in focus, and his body occasionally swayed as he played. Levi now sat with his hand clenched into a tight fist, teeth biting into his knuckle painfully as he blinked back tears.

He had had such promise. By now, he probably would have been famous in the classical world, being flown out to different countries to perform in front of hundreds and thousands, doing interviews about being one of the youngest, successful musicians who could play Beethoven with his eyes closed and just by listening to it once or twice.

He couldn’t put a barrier between himself and the boy on the TV. It was him, and he could remember every second in those two hours on stage, he could remember the sleepless nights where he’d study the sheet music until he could play it half-delirious and with his eyes closed. He could feel his hands twitch in time to each note, could hear his own music swim into his ears. Levi closes his eyes and feels something drip onto his shaking fist. A natural, excellent talent with a promising future slipped from his fingers and out of his grasp like sand. He hasn’t touched a violin in months before today.

The video ends – they watched the entire thing and didn’t say a word – and it stops, leaves a still image of Levi bowing with his bow and violin at his side, and people are standing up, hands a blur in frozen claps. He can hear the applause echo in his ears now, and then it fades out, turns to a ticking clock counting down his time. Levi’s teeth dig into his knuckle, and he doesn’t look away from the image with wide, burning eyes.

“You know, Levi,” Erwin says, “I’d love to hear you live, in person, if you’d let me one day. You have amazing skill.” Have, he says, not had, and Levi’s eyes flutter closed.

“Had,” he corrects dryly, and Erwin shakes his head.

“Have. Still do, Levi. School walls aren’t thick and the violin isn’t a quiet instrument. You still have that skill.”

Levi stares at the him on the TV, and he wonders what he would think about him now. If he could see him now, he wonders what he’d have to say to him, if he’d be disgusted at himself or think they aren’t even the same person.

Erwin’s thigh warms his and he tries to turn the thoughts around. Yes, he’s done things that will scar him, but he’s the only one saying that he can’t move past it. Yes, he’s suffering and experienced things that have torn him down, stripped him of his humanity, but he’s the only one that’s scared of moving forwards. Yes, he’s disgusted with himself, but he doesn’t have to be, not now, not forever.

He stands up, and so does Erwin. When he doesn’t move Erwin does, and his head rests against his chest, his hands between both of theirs, and he hugs him, gentle and comforting.

“One day Levi, you’ll see yourself like I do. You can get back onto stages like that, Levi. You performed there at seventeen, there’s tons of places that would be dying to have you there, if that’s what you want. Stop expecting yourself to get over what’s happened in a day, Levi. Let yourself hurt, let yourself be angry and sad and let yourself heal and take your time, Levi. You’ll be fine – maybe not tomorrow, but tomorrow is another day closer.”

Erwin’s voice is soft and his chin sits atop Levi’s head, and Levi drowns in his voice. Lets it wash over him, lets himself hear it and stick to it, understands it. He nods slightly, and Erwin’s hand rests on his shoulder.

“Let me…” Levi rubs under his eyes and clears his throat. “Let me play a song.”

He knows he doesn’t need Erwin’s permission to go and use his piano, but he knows Erwin picks up on things he doesn’t need to say, and he smiles, all confident and sure.

“I’d love you to.”

Levi plays his piano. His fingers fall onto a few wrong keys and he’s forgotten one song that he used to play a lot during his lessons because it’s fast and complicated and always challenged him, but Erwin likes it. Erwin says it’s amazing and Levi plays more songs until they’re tired, and he wears his own new clothes in a soft, warm bed that night, with a full stomach, a productive day bringing him a step forwards in his progress, and Erwin breathing deeply behind him.

He faces Erwin before he sleeps. Watches his chest rise and fall, sees his hair mess up across his forehead, his fingers twitch, his long eyelashes rest above his sharp cheekbone. One arm is draped lazily over Levi, and Levi traces the veins down his arm with the tips of his fingers, and he tells Erwin thank you, thank you, and he sleeps.

 

It’s Erwin’s last day at work before it goes off for the Christmas holidays, and Levi realises it’s only five days until Christmas. When it gets dark he can see coloured Christmas lights in the streets below Erwin’s house, and it makes Levi feel… Odd. He can’t quite describe the emotion he feels when Erwin’s away. It gives him time to think to himself, to process everything, especially now when he has a stronger grip on reality. His withdrawals are dying down slowly – he still has to rush to the toilet and gag, and his hands shake and he’s cold all the time – but he only sees shadows out of the corner of his eyes move if it’s dark and he’s tired, and he doesn’t wake up wanting to die, or run behind Erwin’s back and find some pills or powder. He does, at least, want a cigarette, and he realises then that Erwin hasn’t smoked since Levi stopped, too, and Levi shakes his head. Erwin is too good, too loyal, for someone like Levi.

While Erwin is at work, he plays the piano. Sometimes he plays old, classic songs, or he recreates new modern ones into an acoustic piano version, or he’ll make one up as he plays. He plays _Bohemian Rhapsody_ , _the Liszt piano sonata in B minor_ , and he plays _Take Me To Church_. He makes some random one up and lets it spill from his fingertips and slide them along the keys, and he thinks about Erwin. He thinks about Erwin a lot.

He owes a lot to Erwin, even if Erwin would deny anything other than letting Levi buy him a coffee. He owes Erwin things that he can’t afford, things that are more than material things, and his stomach twists when he thinks about how he can’t give him it. He wants to show Erwin his appreciation, his thanks, and he doesn’t know how to. He thinks about how, if Levi believed in God, he might believe that Erwin was an angel, put in his path on purpose. But he doesn’t, and so he believes that Erwin is just a good person through and through, better than Levi could ever strive to be, and he recounts the first time he met Erwin, recounts the second time they met, the first time he came to his house, every conversation he could remember.

Erwin Smith is a good man, and Levi thinks he’d be dead without him.

Levi makes a song. He makes a song with Erwin on his mind and on his fingertips and on his lips, and when Erwin comes back from work and they have a glass of champagne – nothing more than two glasses, Erwin knows better during this time – and head to bed, Levi slips out from his arm, closes all the doors, and falls asleep two hours later with his head against the piano.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Looks like Levi's finally getting to heal and possibly confront himself on being hesitant to do so, who knows, hmm. I hope you enjoyed it! Feel free to leave any feedback on anything!


	20. Nineteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the poor updates! Had a nervous breakdown and spammed my tumblr with eruri fanart and posts - feel free to check it all out @ killerrs-queen lol. Anyhow, enjoy the fluff!

Erwin wakes him up in the morning with a curious expression, but he doesn’t say anything. While he sits at his desk and marks a few tests from work, Levi plays the piano. He finishes the song he came up with while he was away and before he fell asleep and he plays some other songs, presses his fingers into the keys, and he adds words in his head. It’s been a while since he created a song by scratch, and he wonders if it’s terrible or not. Erwin comments that the songs he plays are good, though, and Levi hums.

They go out for dinner. It’s snowing and dark and Levi forgets his scarf so Erwin stands at the side of the street, takes his time in wrapping his own scarf around Levi’s neck, and they continue down the street. Levi’s hand finds Erwin’s, and when he slips on a patch of ice, Erwin catches him with an arm around his waist and doesn’t put it back down. It’s nice.

Erwin takes him to a nice restaurant. There’s the clink of cutlery and quiet music in the background drowned by chatter from all the customers in the place. They’re brought to a table in the side. There’s a lit candle on the middle of the table and Levi takes his jacket and Erwin’s scarf off, setting them over the back of the chair, and then he sits down, crosses one leg over the other, and picks up the menu on the table.

“The food here is really good,” Erwin says, and Levi hums. “I usually get the fish, but I might change it up,” he murmurs thoughtfully, and Levi’s lips twitch.

“Getting crazy tonight,” he comments, and Erwin snorts.

The waiter comes and they order – Erwin doesn’t get crazy and he orders the fish again with a telling look from Levi. Levi orders one of the burgers, and Erwin adds a bottle of wine to the list, which gets there before the food. The blonde pours them both a glass, and Erwin insists on clinking glasses before taking a sip. Levi still doesn’t have the same appetite for wine that Erwin does – he’d still much rather a whiskey, or a rum – but he can appreciate it.

Their food comes and Levi steals chips from Erwin’s plate, dips it in the ketchup on the side, and returns to his burger to avoid Erwin’s sarcastically exasperated expression, but he seems happy to see Levi getting more of an appetite now.

They eat and talk and order cake for desert, and Levi says something that makes Erwin laugh and clap a hand over his mouth with cake in it, and Levi smiles at the sight. He realises that, as much as he sees Erwin smile and joke, there’s always a tightly-wound air to him, stress and tension still under the surface, and Levi wants to take it away from him, so he tries to make him laugh as much as he can while they eat.

They order more wine and it goes right to Levi’s head. He had never been an extremely good drinker, rather just better at pacing himself and making it look like he was a strong drinker. When they leave he trips over the step and Erwin catches him by the wrist. His own cheeks are slightly pink and Levi laughs.

He feels good. Just good, with no other little things bugging him.

They walk down the dark streets, making jokes to each other and laughing dramatically at it. Erwin, the more sober of the two, watches their step and guides Levi around the icy patches on the pavement, away from really big puddles, catches him when he trips or loses his balance.

“You know, I fucking hate wine,” Levi comments, and Erwin raises a thick eyebrow.

“Really? I couldn’t tell, considering you drank enough to get drunk.”

Levi glares at him. “I am not drunk, first of all. It’s just fucking dark and I can’t see for shit, and I don’t appreciate that tone, Erwin,” he says, and Erwin just smiles, looks away, and Levi nudges him. They walk a few paces, and Levi trips over another slightly raised stone in the path, and Erwin catches him.

“Don’t even say a word, Smith.”

“Whatever you say, Levi,” he says with a small snicker, and Levi pinches his side. He would have his arm slung over his shoulder for more support, but the man is too tall for him to actually do that, so he awkwardly hangs around his torso.

The streets are full of couples wandering the Christmas markets and people heading out for a fun Saturday night, and Levi can smell the smoke and alcohol flooding out of some buildings and he twitches his nose at it, leans against Erwin.

“Y’know, Erwin,” Levi says, tips his head up to look at him, “I’ve been playing your piano a lot more,” he comments, and Erwin nods.

“I’ve heard. It’s very nice,” he says, and then sighs. He stops their wandering, turns Levi and takes the falling scarf from around his neck and begins to redo it – folding it, hooking it around his neck, putting one end through the loop and pushing it up against his neck gently.

“I wrote a song.”

“That’s great, Levi.”

“For you,” he clarifies, and Erwin raises an eyebrow.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Done it for a few days, it’s kinda shit.”

“I highly doubt it. You’ve been playing very beautiful songs lately.”

Levi hums pleasantly, shrugs his shoulders and rubs his eyes.

“Will you play it for me?” He asks, and Levi purses his lips.

“It’d be a bit pointless if I didn’t,” he states, and Erwin gives him a soft nudge.

“Maybe so,” Erwin shrugs, and the topic changes. There’s light snow falling down around them and standing out against Levi’s dark hair and clothes. Erwin ruffles his hair and melts snow off it, and Levi tilts his head back into his hand.

They wander the busy Christmas market, look at all the stalls and decorations and buy some homemade fudge that’s sweet on his tongue and lips, and they nibble on it and wander the streets. Erwin’s eyes linger on some nice looking ring and Levi follows after him, an arm linked with his. There’s some woman playing guitar and a man singing at a statue, and they listen to them for a while before continuing their walk. Once Erwin sobers up almost completely, they head back to his car and Levi slumps in the passenger seat, holds Erwin’s hand while the other holds the steering wheel.

They put the heating on and Levi helps Erwin put up Christmas decorations after voicing his disgust in the fact that he hasn’t had them up and it’s less than a week until the day – Erwin explains how he either has them up by the first of December, or on Christmas eve because he’s busy. It goes fast with the two of them and he cracks open another bottle of wine now that they’re home, and they laugh. Levi hangs some fairly lights across shelves and they spend a good hour putting his Christmas tree up in the corner of the living room, and another two hours decorating it and drinking wine. Erwin puts some Christmas playlist on YouTube for them and he jokingly spins Levi under his arm. From behind his back, Levi pulls out a mistletoe with a mischievous grin and goes on his toes to hold it above both his and Erwin’s heads. Erwin doesn’t hesitate before kissing him, soft and slow, hands on his hips, and it’s lovely.

By the time they finish decorating the house looks like Santa threw up over the ceiling and walls, and Erwin finds some breadsticks and dip and they snack on those and finish the wine. Levi would lie if he said he didn’t fall over at least once, but Erwin promised not to tell anyone so it’s fine. He trusts Erwin, even if he’s grinning and has a boyish look in his eyes that makes Levi simply _happy_ to see.

Levi tugs on his shirt to pull him down so he kiss his cheek, and they laugh when he falls back and almost spills the last of his wine. He drains it and sets the glass down, and then he takes Erwin’s hand and pulls him into the study.

“That song,” he says, simply, and sits in front of the piano. His mind is slightly, pleasantly, fuzzy, but he can still remember each lyric, each note and chord and beat, so therefore he can still play it. Erwin leans against the window next to him, twinkling city lights framing him, and he watches Levi’s slender fingers find the first correct keys, and then he plays.

It’s a gentle song at first, left hand playing deep chords and his right plucking keys. He clears his throat, ignores the anxiety twisting his guts, and he sings. He’s not sang in – God – years. He used to be in the choir when he was at school, and there’s probably a couple of youtube videos on an abandoned channel still surviving out there, but he knows that, at the very least, he’s always received good feedback on his voice, and he knows Erwin wouldn’t judge him even if he couldn’t sing for shit.

“Lookin’ at the mess I am, but still you want me.” He shifts on the chair, his fingers almost slip onto a wrong key. Erwin is silent.

“Oh, I always let you down, I’m shattered on the ground, but still I find you there, next to me.” His leg bounces anxiously. He closes his eyes, doesn’t look at Erwin. His fingers dig into the keys.

“I’m far from good, it’s true, but still you want me.” He feels unpleasantly sober.

“I got no innocence,” his throat hurts, “faith ain’t no privilege.”

He presses harder on the keys, hunches his shoulders slightly. The song quietens, almost stops, and then he’s pushing the keys again, hard, sliding forwards in his seat, closer to the keys. He slows, opens his eyes and looks at Erwin.

“So thank you, for taking a chance on me,” he’s not really singing that part, but it doesn’t matter.

“I know it isn’t easy,” he shakes his head. God knows how hard it’s been on Erwin. “But I hope to be worth it.”

He slows down, turns to look at his fingers. They’re steady.

“I’m far from good it’s true, but still I find you there… Next to me.” He presses the last few notes, lets his fingers rest over the keys before putting his hands on his thighs. There’s a moment where nothing happens, and he stares at the keys in front of him. Then he turns to look at Erwin as he pushes himself off the wall, and he crouches so he’s eye level to Levi. There’s something in his eyes and expression that Levi can’t quite pinpoint.

“Levi,” his hand cups the back of his neck in an intimate way, “thank you for letting me help you. I don’t think I’ll ever look back to regret my decision.” He takes his hands, brings him to his feet. “And I’ll tell you as many times as you want to hear it; I’ll always be by your side. I’m so proud of you, Levi.”

Levi runs his hands up to rest on Erwin’s chest, and he ducks his head down. He kisses Levi soft and sure, a hand on his lower back keeping him close, and Levi rests an arm around Erwin’s shoulders, holds himself up on his toes.

“Erwin,” he breathes when they part lips, and his nose nudges his cheek, followed by his lips. He can feel Erwin’s hands twitch, a small tremble running through them. “I… I think I love you.”

His heart skips a beat, and Erwin’s lips twitch against his skin. His blue, blue eyes flutter open, emotional and watery, and he smiles.

“I love you too, Levi. Thank you.”

Levi thinks he might have a future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do y'all think of that? Fluffy enough? More fluff?


	21. Twenty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may have noticed this is the last part - I kind of forgot to update it to say that it was the final part, so surprise! 
> 
> As always, I hope you enjoy this part, and I want to thank everyone for reading this.
> 
> I had intended to write more, honestly. I wanted to just keep writing endless Eruri fluff, but that wasn't the point of the story and why I started writing it. It was always supposed to end around this time, so I hope you like it.

Levi gets closer to Erwin over more time. They acknowledge what they have after the confession, and Erwin asks if he wants to make something official. Levi does, so they do, and it feels nice.

He feels better now. Erwin cooks and teaches Levi how to cook a few things, and they go out for dinner another couple of times. They spend Christmas together – Erwin face times his family in Germany and introduces Levi, and Levi phones Farlan and then Isabel, apologises for being distant and describes, briefly, what’s happened but how he’s fine now, _good_ now, and they make plans to meet the next time they’re nearby.

Erwin gets Levi a violin on Christmas day. It’s a surprise – Erwin wakes up early, hushes Levi back to sleep saying he’s getting groceries, and then he waits in the living room until Levi wanders inside with sweatpants low on his hips, hair a mess, and eyes tired with sleep, to point at the new case on the couch, and Levi gapes at him, wide awake, curses at him and hits his shoulder for spending so much money on him, but he can’t stop smiling when it sits perfectly in his fingers, under his chin and Levi plays as many songs as he wants for him. The strings are familiar under his fingers and he spends many hours playing it, playing familiar songs, making new ones. He teaches Erwin how to play the piano, and Levi ends up starting that idea of tutoring with Sina Academy that he and Erwin spoke about. He brings in a fair amount of money, and he feels normal again.

He performs once in the theatre in the town, and then again, and again, and again, and then in a theatre in the city a few hours drive from home. Erwin sits in the crowd and watches Levi play with something sparkling in his blue eyes.

They adopt a cat, and Levi spends a lot of time picking up all the stray hairs it has and complaining about it, but Erwin never tells him about the photos he has where the cat is sleeping across his chest or stomach or lap and Levi’s asleep with his hand mid-stroke on it.

Levi sees Isabel and Farlan again, and they go out and have dinner, and Levi brings them back to his and Erwin’s home, introduces them and makes their situation known with a simple kiss on his cheek, and Isabel interrogates them for every aspect of their relationship while Farlan apologises for her boldness.

Levi sleeps in a tangle of his and Erwin’s limbs, and Erwin laughs in the mornings when Levi insults his morning breath but kisses him anyway. Erwin, at some point, tries to grow out his beard and Levi shaves it off him again after two weeks.

Levi sorts stray ends with his divorce. He’s civil when he sees her and her new husband again, and Erwin holds his hand while they meet and helps him sort out his belongings and take them back to his house and sets all his old family photos and friend photos with him, and more join the collection – him and Erwin at a Christmas market in Berlin, Erwin grinning brightly with an arm around Levi, Levi with a red nose, face half hidden in a scarf, but eyes bright and happy; him and Erwin at the Eiffel tower, Levi in a shirt and formal trousers, an arm around Erwin’s hips, other hand in his pocket; him and Erwin asleep on the couch when Isabel and Farlan slept over and Isabel took the creep-shot of them, Erwin’s head on his chest and Levi’s fingers in his hair. Erwin puts a photo of Levi sleeping with their cat on his stomach on a shelf that he can’t see or reach, and Levi doesn’t find it. Levi makes Erwin get more art for the house, saying the walls are horrendously empty, and they breathe life back into the house, make it a home.

Levi donates money to homeless charities and mental health organisations and those aiming to help rehabilitate drug addicts. During the holidays he volunteers at a soup kitchen, and he’s asked to talk about his own experiences, motivate others that there’s always a choice, that there’s always a future.

Sometimes Levi has nightmares. He wakes up in a cold sweat and shaking, gasping for air when he’d been choking moments before, his nose burning with traces of well-remembered cocaine, his mind melting with the effects of everything, disorientated with a soft mattress under his back rather than stones and broken glass. Erwin holds him close, reassures and hushes him, traces shapes on his bare skin until he stops shaking and slides back into his side, listens to his sturdy heartbeat under his ear until his breathing matches it.

Sometimes they watch movies and do nothing; Levi drapes his legs over Erwin’s lap and lets him play with his hair while they watch some old or new movie with remnants of a takeaway on the plates in front of them and their cat sapping more of Erwin’s heat from his side.

Sometimes Levi kisses him until they’re breathless and Erwin’s knees hit the edge of his large bed, and they don’t get back out until next morning.

After two years, during Christmas, they go on a trip. They go to Amsterdam, because it’s some place they always wanted to go, and they walk through streets bundled in thick jackets and scarves and they warm up in coffee shops with hot chocolates and tea, and they stand on a bridge over a canal and look at the Christmas lights flashing in the reflection of the water, hear faint Christmas music and street musicians and people laughing and talking, and Erwin gets on one knee and pulls out a little blue velvet box and Levi says, _yes, of fucking course,_ _yes_.

Their marriage is a quiet one. They go away for a couple of weeks and travel a few countries, see new things, and then come back home, the place Levi really feels is home, and they get another cat and bring more pictures back to set around the house.

Erwin’s students _awe_ at them when Levi comes into the school to see him, and his students get them a cake and somehow also a bottle of wine – Levi’s began to appreciate wine more recently – and they have both at home. Erwin insists on doing some dumb shit like feeding bits of the cake to Levi, and Levi lets him because his cheeks are flushed and his hair is slightly messy and the young smile it brings to Erwin’s face is worth it.

At one point, a couple more years down the line, Erwin says the word _kids_ and Levi thinks for a long time about that, and they talk about it a lot.

Levi thinks back to a few years ago, when he was ready to spend Christmas on the floor of a crack house, overdosing.

Their daughter is called Sofia Ackerman-Smith.

Levi doesn’t often think back anymore. He focuses on the mornings he wakes up to Erwin kissing his forehead or cheek, or trying to be gentle as he untangles himself and goes to make some breakfast. He focuses on getting Sofia ready for school, on watching her grow up and talking to Erwin, who is petrified when she grows up. He focuses on helping her through her first heartbreak, her first night drinking, her drama with friends. He focuses on making fun of Erwin for the grey hairs that start to appear, but says he ages like fine wine, and kisses him again.

But when he does think back, on the rare few occasions, his heart swells for Erwin who gave him a chance to live, and he realises he’s living the future he thought he wouldn’t live to see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you've enjoyed it so far. I'll be going through it now and editing the mistakes and typos out of chapters, but unless I decide to make a sequel of parent Eruri and pure fluff, this is done. I'm both happy and sad to say that.
> 
> Like I said earlier - I had intended to write more. I'm never really sure how to finish stories, but I know I started this story to focus on Levi's homelessness and struggles, and getting help. And Levi's struggled, and he's gotten help. That's what I wanted to write, and so there's nothing else for me to add - maybe add another paragraph or two of fluff and memories the two make, or make a sequel of said memories, but otherwise - we're done, troopers.
> 
> Thank you all for reading and commenting on this, I hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it. I have more eruri fics coming in the future, so feel free to keep an eye open for them, and if you ever want to reach me my Tumblr is @killerrs-queen.

**Author's Note:**

> I would love to hear any and all feedback! This is a shorter chapter; most are usually much longer, but I just wanted something small out to set it.


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